T^rmnsjDE^ioGRAPHicAL Series 



E 672 
.043 



ULYSSES 
GRANT 




WALTER ALLEN 




Class _ £— _<o ~ 7 ZZj 
Book__/X ^-\3 
CopyrightN? 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



®tie Htoerai&e Biographical &>ttit& 

NUMBER 7 

ULYSSES S. GRANT 

BY 

WALTER ALLEN 



ULYSSES S. GRANT 



BY 



WALTER ALLEN 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

mt fitoetfibe #«#, £ambrib0e 

1901 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

APR. 29 1901 

Copyright entry 

(jLhn.T-q.tqo! 

CLASS &> XXc. N» 
COPY 9. 






COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY WALTER ALLEN 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



CONTENTS 



I. Our National Military Hero . . 1 

II. His Ancestry 5 

III. The Period of Youth . . . .11 

IV. His Lifework Appointed . . 18 
V. Love and War 26 

VI. Years of Dormant Power . . 34 

VII. The Summons of Patriotism . . 42 

VIII. From Springfield to Fort Donelson 46 

IX. Shiloh, Corinth, Iuka .... 57 

X. Vicksburg 65 

XL New Responsibilities — Chattanooga 77 
XII. Lieutenant-General, Commander of 

all the Armies ... .85 

XIII. The Wilderness and Spottsylvania 95 

XIV. From Spottsylvania to Richmond . 104 
XV. In Washington among Politicians . 114 

XVI. His First Administration . . . 123 

XVII. His Second Administration . . 133 

XVIII. The Tour of the World . . . 144 
XIX. Reverses of Fortune — III Health — 

His Last Victory — The End . 149 



ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 



CHAPTER I 
OUR NATIONAL MILITARY HERO 

Since the end of the civil war in the 
United States, whoever has occasion to name 
the three most distinguished representatives 
of our national greatness is apt to name 
Washington, Lincoln, and Grant. General 
Grant is now our national military hero. Of 
Washington it has often been said that he 
was " first in war, first in peace, and first in 
the hearts of his countrymen." When this 
eulogy was wholly just the nation had been 
engaged in no war on a grander scale than 
the war for independence. That war, in the 
numbers engaged, in the multitude and re- 
nown of its battles, in the territory over 
which its campaigns were extended, in its 
destruction of life and waste of property, in 



2 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

the magnitude of the interests at stake (but 
not in the vital importance of the issue), was 
far inferior to the civil war. It happens 
quite naturally, as in so many other affairs 
in this world, that the comparative physical 
magnitude of the conflicts has much influ- 
ence in moulding the popular estimate of the 
rank of the victorious commanders. 

Those who think that in our civil war 
there were other officers in both armies who 
were Grant's superiors in some points of 
generalship will hardly dispute that, taking 
all in all, he was supreme among the gen- 
erals on the side of the Union. He whom 
Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, and Meade saw 
promoted to be their commander, not only 
without envy, but with high gratification, 
under whom they all served with cordial 
confidence and enthusiasm, cannot have been 
esteemed by them unfit for the distinction. 
If these great soldiers then and always ac- 
claimed him worthy to be their leader, it is 
unbecoming for others, and especially for 
men who are not soldiers, to contradict their 
judgment. 



OUR NATIONAL MILITARY HERO 3 

Whether he was a greater soldier than 
General Robert E. Lee, the commander-in- 
chief of the army of the Confederate States, 
is a question on which there may always be 
two opinions. As time passes, and the pas- 
sions of the war expire, it may be that wise 
students of military history, weighing the 
achievements of each under the conditions 
imposed, will decide that in some respects 
Lee was Grant's superior in mastery of the 
art of war. Whether or not this comes 
about, Lee can never supplant Grant as our 
national military hero. He fought to de- 
stroy the Union, not to save it, and in the 
end he was beaten by General Grant. How- 
ever much men may praise the personal vir- 
tues and the desperate achievements of the 
great warrior of the revolt against the 
Union, they cannot conceal that he was the 
defeated leader of a lost cause, a cause which, 
in the chastened judgment of coming time, 
will appear to all men, as even now it does 
to most dispassionate patriots, well and for- 
tunately lost. 

In the story of Grant's life some things 



4 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

must be told that are not at all heroic. Much 
as it might be wished that he had been what 
Carlyle says a hero should be, a hero at all 
points, he was not a worshipful hero. Like 
ourselves all, he was a combination of quali- 
ties good and not good. The lesson and en- 
couragement of his life are that in spite of 
weaknesses which at one time seemed to 
have doomed him to failure and oblivion, he 
so mastered himself upon opportune occa- 
sion that he was able to prove his power to 
command great and intelligent armies fight- 
ing in a right cause, to obtain the confidence 
of Lincoln and of his loyal countrymen, and 
to secure a fame as noble and enduring as 
any that has been won with the sword. 



CHAPTER II 

HIS ANCESTRY 

This hero of ours was of an excellent an- 
cestry. Until lately, most Americans have 
been careless of preserving their family rec- 
ords. That they were Americans and of a 
respectable line, if not a distinguished one, 
for two or three generations back, was as 
much of family history as interested them, 
and all they really knew. This was espe- 
cially true of families which had emigrated 
from place to place as pioneers in the settle- 
ment of the country. Family records were 
left behind, and in the hard desperate work 
of life in a new country, where everything 
depended on individual qualities, and fore- 
fathers counted for little in the esteem of 
men as poor, as independent, and as aspiring 
as themselves, memories faded and traditions 
were forgotten. It was esteemed a condition 
of the equality which was the national boast 



6 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

that no one should take credit to himself on 
account of distant ancestry. Not until 
Abraham Lincoln had honored his name by 
his own nobility did anybody think it worth 
while to inquire whether his blood was of the 
strain of the New England Lincolns. 

All that was known of the Grants in Ohio 
was that Jesse, the father of Ulysses, came 
from Pennsylvania. Jesse himself knew that 
his father, who died when he was a boy, was 
Noah Grant, Jr., who came into Pennsylva- 
nia from Connecticut, and he had made some 
further exploration of his genealogical line. 
But this was more than his neighbors knew 
or cared to know about the family, until a 
son demonstrated possession of extraordinary 
qualities, which set the believers in heredity 
upon making investigation. The Grants 
are traced back through Pennsylvania to 
Connecticut, and from Connecticut to the 
Massachusetts Bay Colony, where Matthew 
Grant lived in 1630. He is believed to 
have come from Scotland, where the Grant 
clan has been distinguished for centuries on 
account of its sturdy indomitable traits and 



HIS ANCESTRY 7 

its prowess in war. The chiefs of the clan 
had armorial crests of which the conspicuous 
emblem was commonly a burning mountain, 
and the motto some expression of unyielding 
firmness. In one case it was, " Stand Fast, 
Craig Ellarchie ! " in another, simply " Stand 
Fast ; " in another, " Stand Sure." Some- 
times Latin equivalents were used, as " Sta- 
bit " and " Immobile." It is said that, as 
late as the Sepoy rebellion in India, there 
was a squadron of British troops, composed 
almost entirely of Scotch Grants, who car- 
ried a banner with the motto : " Stand Fast, 
Craig Ellarchie ! " 

If it be true that our General Grant came 
from such stock, his most notable character- 
istics are no mystery. It was in his blood 
to be what he was. Ancestral traits reap- 
peared in him with a vigor never excelled. 
But they had not been quite dormant during 
the intermediate period. His great-grand- 
father, Captain Noah Grant, of Windsor 
(now Tolland), Conn., commanded a com- 
pany of colonial militia in the French and 
Indian war, and was killed in the battle of 



8 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

White Plains in 1776. His grandfather 
Noah was a lieutenant in a company of the 
Connecticut militia which marched to the 
succor of Massachusetts in the beginning 
of the Revolution. He served, off and on, 
through the war. 

Regarding the circumstances of the re- 
moval to Pennsylvania little is known. 
The home was in Westmoreland County, 
where Jesse R. Grant was born. Soon af- 
terwards the family went to Ohio. When 
Jesse was sixteen he was sent to Maysville, 
Ky., and apprenticed to the tanner's trade, 
which he learned thoroughly, and made the 
chief occupation of his life. Soon after he 
reached his majority he started in business 
for himself in Ravenna, Portage County, 
Ohio. In a short time he removed to Point 
Pleasant, on the Ohio side of the Ohio 
River, about twenty miles above Cincinnati. 
Here he lived and prospered for many years, 
marrying, in 1821, Hannah Simpson, daugh- 
ter of a farmer of the place in good circum- 
stances. The Simpsons were also of Scotch 
ancestry, and of stout, self-reliant, industri- 



HIS ANCESTRY 9 

ous, respectable character, like the Grants. 
Thus in the parents of General Grant were 
united strains of one of the strong races of 
the world, — sound in body, mind, and soul, 
and having in a remarkable degree vital 
energy, the spirit of independence, and the 
staying power which enables its possessors 
to work without tiring, to endure hardships 
with fortitude, and to accumulate a compe- 
tence by patient thrift. This last ability 
General Grant lacked. 

These parents, like those of the majority 
of Americans of the old stock, thought it no 
dishonor to toil for livelihood, cultivating 
their souls' health by performance of daily 
duty in fidelity to God, their country, and 
their home. Jesse R. Grant had slight op- 
portunities of schooling, but he had no con- 
tempt for knowledge. Throughout his life 
he was a diligent reader of books and news- 
papers, and was rated a man of uncommon 
intelligence and of sound judgment in busi- 
ness. He was an entertaining talker, and 
a newspaper writer and public speaker of 
local celebrity. Through his early manhood, 



10 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

while he lived in Ohio, he was a farmer, a 
trader, a contractor for buildings and roads, 
as well as a tanner. When he reached the 
age of sixty, having secured a comfortable 
competence, he retired from active business. 
In his declining years he removed to Coving- 
ton, Ky., near Cincinnati. Mrs. Grant was 
a true helpmate, a woman of refinement of 
nature, of controlling religious faith, being 
from her youth an active member of the 
Methodist Church, of strong wifely and ma- 
ternal instincts. Her life was centred in 
her home and family. Both these parents 
lived to rejoice in the high achievement and 
station of their son Ulysses. 



CHAPTER III 

THE PERIOD OF YOUTH 

Of such ancestry General Grant was born 
April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio, and 
was named Hiram Ulysses Grant. A pic- 
ture of the house in which he was born shows 
it to have been a small frame dwelling of 
primitive character. Its roof, sloping to the 
road in front, inclosed the two or three rooms 
that may have been above the ground floor. 
The principal door was in the middle of the 
front, and there was one small window on 
each side of it. Apparently there was a low 
extension in the rear. This manner of house 
immediately succeeded the primal log cabins 
of the Western States, and such houses have 
sufficed for the happy shelter of large fami- 
lies of strong boys and blooming girls, as 
sound in body and soul, if not so refined and 
variously accomplished, as are reared in man- 
sions of more pretension. Love, virtue, in- 



12 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

dustry, and mutual helpfulness made true 
homes and bred useful citizens. 

In the next year his parents removed to 
the village of Georgetown, Ohio, in Brown 
County, where the father continued his busi- 
ness of tanner. There young Grant lived 
until he became a cadet in the Military 
Academy at West Point. His life was that 
of other boys of like condition, with few un- 
common incidents. Being the eldest of an 
increasing f amily, it naturally happened that 
he was required to perform a share of work 
for its support, and to bear responsibilities. 
In Ins early youth his employment was in 
the farm work, and this he always preferred. 
He had a native liking for the open air, and 
enjoyed the smell of furrows and pastures 
and woods more than that of reeking hides 
in their vats. He was fond of all animals, 
and especially delighted in horses, early de- 
monstrating a surprising power in managing 
them. He was locally noted for lus suc- 
cess in breaking colts, and as a trainer of 
horses to be pacers, those having this gait 
being esteemed more desirable for riding, at 



THE PERIOD OF YOUTH 13 

a time when a large part of all traveling was 
done on horseback. As General Grant be- 
came famous at a comparatively early age, 
a large crop of stories of his early feats in 
the subjection and use of horses was culti- 
vated by persons who knew him as a boy. 
Many of these, doubtless, are entirely credi- 
ble ; few of them are so extraordinary that 
they might not be true of any clever boy 
who loved horses and studied their disposi- 
tion and powers. 

He was a lad of self-reliance, fertile in 
resources, and of good judgment within cer- 
tain limitations. Before he was fairly in his 
teens his father intrusted to him domestic 
and business affairs which required him to 
go to the city of Cincinnati alone, a two- 
days' trip. His own account of this period 
of his life is : " When I was seven or eight 
years of age I began hauling [driving the 
team] all the wood used in the house and 
shops. . . . When about eleven years old, I 
was strong enough to hold a plow. From 
that age until seventeen, I did all the work 
done with horses. . . . While still young, I 



14 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

had visited Cincinnati, forty-five miles away, 
several times alone; also Maysville, Ky., 
often, and once Louisville. ... I did not 
like to work ; but I did as much of it while 
young as grown men can be hired to do in 
these days, and attended school at the same 
time. . . . The rod was freely used there, 
and I was not exempt from its influence." 

But his knowledge of horses, of timber, 
and of land was better than his knowledge 
of men. He had no precocious " smartness," 
as the Yankees name the quality which 
enables one person to outwit another. His 
credulity was simple and unsuspecting, at 
least in some directions. This is illustrated 
by a story which he has told himself, one 
which he was never allowed to forget : — 

" There was a Mr. Ralston, who owned a 
colt which I very much wanted. My father 
had offered twenty dollars for it, but Ral- 
ston wanted twenty-five. I was so anxious 
to have the colt that . . . my father yielded, 
but said twenty dollars was all the horse was 
worth, and told me to offer that price. If 
it was not accepted, I was to offer twenty- 



THE PERIOD OF YOUTH 15 

two and a half, and if that would not get 
him, to give the twenty-five. I at once 
mounted a horse and went for the colt. 
When I got to Mr. Kalston's house, I said 
to him : 4 Papa says I may offer you twenty 
dollars for the colt, but, if you won't take 
that, I am to offer twenty-two and a half, 
and if you won't take that, to give you 
twenty-five.' " This naive bargaining was 
done when he was eight years old. Some 
persons have thought it betokens a defect 
in business acumen which was never fully 
cured. 

He learned his school tasks without great 
effort. His parents were alive to the advan- 
tages of education, and required him to at- 
tend all the subscription schools kept in the 
town. There were no free schools there 
during his youth. He was twice sent away 
from home to attend higher schools. It is 
not recorded that he especially liked study 
or disliked it. Probably he took it as a 
part of life, something that had to be done, 
and did it. He was most apt in mathemat- 
ics. When he arrived at West Point he 



16 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

was able to pass the not very severe entrance 
examination without trouble. He seems to 
have had good native powers of perception, 
reasoning, and memory. What he learned 
he kept, but he was never an ardent scholar. 
He had no enthusiasm for knowledge, nor, 
indeed, so far as appears, for anything else 
except horses. He used to fish occasionally, 
but never hunted. The sportsman's tastes 
were not his, nor were his social tastes de- 
monstrative. Possibly they may have been 
restrained in some measure by his mother's 
strictness of religious principles. He was 
neither morose nor brooding, — not a dreamer 
of destiny. He yearned for no star. No 
instinct of his future achievements made 
him peculiar among his companions or caused 
him to hold himself aloof. He exhibited 
nothing of the young Napoleon's distemper 
of gnawing pride. He was just an ordinary 
American boy, with rather less boyishness 
and rather more sobriety than most, dis- 
posed to listen to the talk of his elders in- 
stead of that of persons of his own age, and 
fond of visiting strange places and riding 



THE PERIOD OF YOUTH 17 

and driving about the country. His work 
had made him acquainted with the subjects 
in which grown men were interested. The 
family life was serious but not severe. Obe- 
dience and other domestic virtues were incul- 
cated with fidelity ; but he said that he was 
never scolded or punished at home. 



CHAPTER IV 

HIS LIFEWORK APPOINTED 

When the boy was about seventeen years 
old lie had made up his mind upon one mat- 
ter, — he would not be a tanner for life. 
He told his father, possibly in response to 
some suggestion that it was time for him to 
quit his aimless occupations and begin his 
lifework, that he would work in the shop, 
if he must, until he was twenty-one, but not 
a day longer. His desire then was to be a 
farmer, or a trader, or to get an education ; 
but he seems to have had no definite inclina- 
tion except to escape from the disagreeable 
tannery. His father treated the matter 
judiciously, not being disposed to force the 
boy to learn a business that he would not 
follow. He was unable to set him up in 
farming. He had not much respect for the 
river traders, and may have had little confi- 
dence in the boy's ability to thrive in com- 
petitions of enterprise and greed. 



HIS LIFEWORK APPOINTED 19 

Without consulting his son, he wrote to 
one of the United States Senators from 
Ohio, Hon. Thomas Morris, telling him that 
there was a vacancy in the district's repre- 
sentation in West Point, and asking that 
Ulysses might be appointed. He would not 
write to the congressman from the district, 
because, although neighbors and old friends, 
they belonged to different parties and had 
had a falling out. But the Senator turned 
the letter over to the Congressman, who pro- 
cured the appointment, thus healing a breach 
of which both were ashamed. General 
Grant gives an account of what happened 
when this door to an education and a life 
service was opened before him. His father 
said to him one day: Ui Ulysses, I believe 
you are going to receive the appointment.' 
4 What appointment ? ' I inquired. ' To 
West Point. I have applied for it.' 4 But 
I won't go,' I said. He said he thought I 
would, and I thought so too, if he did." 
The italics are the general's. They make it 
plain that he did not think it prudent to 
make further objection when his father had 
reached a decision. 



20 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

Little did Congressman Thomas L. Hamer 
imagine that in doing this favor for his 
friend, Jesse Grant, he was doing the one 
thins: that would secure remembrance of 
his name by coming generations. It did 
not contribute to his immediate popularity 
among his constituents, for the general opin- 
ion was that many brighter and more deserv- 
ing boys lived in the district, and one of 
them should have been preferred. Neigh- 
bors did not hesitate to shake their heads 
and express the opinion that the appoint- 
ment was unwise. Not one of them had 
discerned any particular promise in the boy. 
Nor were they unreasonable. He was with- 
out other distinctions than of being a strong 
toiler, good-natured, and having a knack 
with horses. He had no aspiration for the 
career of a soldier, in fact never intended to 
stick to it. Even after entering West Point 
his hope, he has said, was to be able, by rea- 
son of his education, to get " a permanent 
position in some respectable college, " — to 
become Professor Grant, not General Grant. 

In the course of making his appointment, 



HIS LIFEWORK APPOINTED 21 

his name by an accident was permanently 
changed. When Congressman Hamer was 
asked for the full name of his protege to be 
inserted in the warrant, he knew that his 
name was Ulysses, and was sure there was 
more of it. He knew that the maiden name 
of his friend's wife was Simpson. At a ven- 
ture, he gave the boy's name as Ulysses 
Simpson Grant. Grant found it so recorded 
when he reached the school, and as he had 
no special fondness for the name Hiram, 
which was bestowed to gratify an aged rela- 
tive, he thought it not worth while to go 
through a long red-tape process to correct 
the error. There was another Cadet Grant, 
and their comrades distinguished this one by 
sundry nicknames, of which " Uncle Sam " 
was one and " Useless " another. 

When he arrived at West Point, in July, 
1839, he was not a prepossessing figure of 
a young gentleman. The rusticity of his 
previous occupation and breeding was upon 
him. Seventeen years old, hardly more 
than five feet tall, but solid and muscular, 
with no particular charm of face or manner, 



22 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

no special dignity of carriage, he was only a 
common sort of pleb, modest, good-natured, 
respectful, companionable but sober-minded, 
observant but undemonstrative, willing but 
not ardent, trusty but without high ambitions, 
— the kind of boy who might achieve com- 
mendable success in the academy, or might 
prove unequal to its requirements, without 
giving cause of surprise to his associates. 

He had no difficulty in passing the ex- 
amination at the end of his six months' pro- 
bationary period, which enabled him to be 
enrolled in the army, and he was never really 
in danger of dismissal for deficient schol- 
arship. He seems to have made no effort 
for superior excellence in scholarship, and 
in some studies his rank was low. Mathe- 
matics gave him no trouble, and he says 
that he rarely read over any of his lessons 
more than once, which is evidence that he 
had unusual power of concentrating his at- 
tention, the secret of quick work in study. 
This power and a faithful memory will en- 
able any one to achieve high distinction if 
he is willing to toil for it. Grant was not 



HIS LIFEWORK APPOINTED 23 

willing to toil for it. He gave time to other 
things, not in the routine prescribed. He 
pursued a generous course of reading in 
modern English fiction, including all the 
works then published of Scott, Bulwer, 
Marryat, Lever, Cooper, and Washington 
Irving, and much besides. 

The thing for which he was especially 
distinguished was, as may be surmised, 
horsemanship. He was esteemed one of the 
best horsemen of his time at the academy. 
But this, too, was easy for him. He appears 
to have been on good terms with his fellows 
and well liked, but he was not a leader 
among them. He has said that while at 
home he did not like to work. It must be 
judged that his mind was affected by a cer- 
tain indolence, that he was capable enough 
when he addressed himself to any particular 
task, but not self -disposed to exertion. He 
felt no constant, pricking incitement to do 
his best ; but was content to do fairly well, 
as well as was necessary for the immediate 
occasion. One of his comrades in the acad- 
emy said in later years that he remembered 



24 ULYSSES SIMPSON GEANT 

him as " a very uncle-like sort of a youth. 
. . . He exhibited but little enthusiasm in 
anything." 

He was graduated in 1843, at the age of 
21 years, ranking 21 in a class of 39, a 
little below the middle station. He had 
grown 6 inches taller while at the academy, 
standing 5 feet 7 inches, but weighed no 
more than when he entered, 117 pounds. 
His physical condition had been somewhat 
reduced at the end of his term by the wear- 
ing effect of a threatening cough. It can- 
not be said that any one then expected him 
to do great things. The characteristics of 
his early youth that have been set forth 
were persistent. He was older, wiser, more 
accomplished, better balanced, but in funda- 
mental traits he was still the Ulysses Grant 
of the farm — hardly changed at all. No 
more at school than at home was his life 
vitiated by vices. He was neither profane 
nor filthy. His temperament was cool and 
wholesome. He tried to learn to smoke, but 
was then unable. It is remembered that 
during the vacation in the middle of his 



HIS LIFEWORK APPOINTED 25 

course, spent at home, he steadily declined 
all invitations to partake of intoxicants, the 
reason assigned being that he with others 
had pledged themselves not to drink at all, 
for the sake of example and help to one of 
their number whose good resolutions needed 
such propping. At his graduation he was a 
man and a soldier. Life, with all its attrac- 
tions and opportunities, was before. Phleg- 
matic as he may have been, it cannot be 
supposed that the future was without beck- 
oning voices and the rosy glamour of hope. 



CHAPTER V 
LOVE AND WAR 

He had applied for an appointment in the 
dragoons, the designation of the one regi- 
ment of cavalry then a part of our army. 
His alternative selection was the Fourth In- 
fantry. To this he was attached as a brevet 
second lieutenant, and after the expiration 
of the usual leave spent at home, he joined 
his regiment at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis. 
Duties were not severe, and the officers en- 
tertained much company at the barracks and 
gave much time to society in the neighbor- 
hood. Grant had his saddle-horse, a gift of 
his father, and took his full share in the 
social life. A few miles away was the home 
of his classmate and chum during his last 
year at the academy, F. T. Dent. One of 
Dent's sisters was a young lady of seventeen, 
educated at a St. Louis boarding school. 
After she returned to her home in the late 



LOVE AND WAR 27 

winter young Grant found the Dent home- 
stead more attractive than ever. 

This was the time of the agitation regard- 
ing the annexation of Texas, a policy to which 
young Grant was strongly hostile. About 
May 1 of the next year, 1844, some of the 
troops at the barracks were ordered to New 
Orleans. Grant, thinking his own regiment 
might go soon, got a twenty-days leave to 
visit his home. He had hardly arrived when 
by a letter from a fellow officer he learned 
that the Fourth had started to follow the 
Third, and that his belongings had been for- 
warded. It was then that he became con- 
scious of the real nature of his feeling for 
Julia Dent. His leave required him to 
report to Jefferson Barracks, and although 
he knew his regiment had gone, he construed 
the orders literally and returned there, stay- 
ing only long enough to declare his love and 
learn that it was reciprocated. The secret 
was not made known to the parents of the 
young lady until the next year, when he re- 
turned on a furlough to see her. For three 
years longer they were separated, while he 



28 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

was winning honor and promotion. After 
peace was declared, and the regiment had 
returned to the States, they were married. 
She shared all his vicissitudes of fortune 
until his death. Their life together was one 
in which wifely faith and duty failed not, 
nor did he fail to honor and esteem her 
above all women. Whatever his weaknesses, 
infidelity in domestic affection was not one 
of them. In all relations of a personal 
character he reciprocated trust with the 
whole tenacity of his nature. 

In Louisiana the regiment encamped on 
high ground near the Sabine River, not far 
from the old town of Natchitoches. The 
camp was named Camp Salubrity. In 
Grant's case, certainly, the name was justi- 
fied. There he got rid of the cough that 
had fastened upon him at West Point and 
had caused fears that he would early fall a 
victim to consumption. In Louisiana he was 
restored to perfect, lusty health, fit for any 
• exertion or privation. He was regarded as 
a modest and amiable lieutenant of no great 
promise. The regiment was moved to Cor- 



LOVE AND WAR 29 

pus Christi, a trading and smuggling port. 
There the army of occupation (of Texas) 
was slowly collected, consisting of about 
three thousand men, commanded by Gen- 
eral Zachary Taylor. Mexico still claimed 
this part of Texas, and it was expected that 
our forces would be attacked. But they 
were not, and, as the real purpose was to 
provoke attack, the army was moved to a 
point opposite Matamoras on the Rio 
Grande, where a new camp was established 
and fortified. Previous to leaving Corpus 
Christi, Grant had been promoted, Septem- 
ber 30, 1845, from brevet second lieutenant 
to full second lieutenant. The advance was 
made in March, 1846. On the 8th of May 
the battle of Palo Alto was fought, on the 
hither side of the Rio Grande, in which 
Grant had an active part, acquitting himself 
with credit. On the next day was the bat- 
tle of Resaca de la Palma, in which he was 
acting adjutant in place of the officer killed. 
One consequence of these victories was the 
evacuation of Matamoras. War with Mex- 
ico having been declared, General Taylor's 
army became an army of invasion. 



30 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

Volunteers for the war now began coming 
from the States. In August the movement 
on Monterey began, and on the 19th of 
September, Taylor's army was encamped 
before the city. The battle of Monterey 
was begun on the 21st, and the desperately 
defended city was surrendered and evacuated 
on the 24th. Grant, although then doing 
quartermaster's duty, having his station with 
the baggage train, went to the front on the 
first day, and was a participant in the as- 
sault, incurring all its perils, and volunteer- 
ing for the extremely hazardous duty of a 
messenger between different parts of the 
force. 

When General Scott arrived at the mouth 
of the Rio Grande, Grant's regiment was 
detached from Taylor's army and joined 
Scott's. He was present and participated 
in the siege of Vera Cruz, the battle of Cerro 
Gordo, the assault on Churubusco, the storm- 
ing of Chapultepec, for which he volunteered 
with a part of his company, and the battle 
of Molino del Rey. Colonel Garland, com- 
mander of the brigade, in his report of the 



LOVE AND WAR 31 

storming of Chapultepec, said : " Lieutenant 
Grant, 4th Infantry, acquitted himself most 
nobly upon several occasions under my own 
observation." After the battle of Molino 
del Key he was appointed on the field a first 
lieutenant for his gallantry. For his con- 
duct at Chapultepec he was later brevetted 
a captain, to date from that battle, Septem- 
ber 13, 1847. He entered the city of Mex- 
ico a first lieutenant, after having been, as 
he says, in all the engagements of the war 
possible for any one man, in a regiment that 
lost more officers during the war than it ever 
had present in a single engagement. 

Perhaps his most notable exploit was dur- 
ing the assault on the gate of San Cosine, 
under command of General Worth. While 
reconnoitring for position, Grant observed 
a church not far away, having a belfry. 
With another officer and a howitzer, and 
men to work it, he reached the church, and, 
by dismounting the gun, carried it to the bel- 
fry, where it was mounted again but a few 
hundred yards from San Cosme, and did 
excellent service. General Worth sent 



32 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

Lieutenant Pemberton (the same who in 
the civil war defended Vicksburg) to bring 
Grant to him. The general complimented 
Lieutenant Grant on the execution his gun 
was doing, and ordered a captain of volti- 
geurs to report to him with another gun. 
" I could not tell the general," says Grant, 
" that there was not room enough in the 
steeple for another gun, because he probably 
would have looked upon such a statement as 
a contradiction from a second lieutenant. 
I took the captain with me, but did not use 
his gun." 

The American army entered the city of 
Mexico, September 14, 1847, and this was 
his station until June, 1848, when the Amer- 
ican army was withdrawn from Mexico, 
peace being established. There was no more 
fighting. Grant was occupied with his 
duties as quartermaster, and in making ex- 
cursions about the country, in which and its 
people he conceived a warm interest that 
never changed. Upon returning to his own 
country he left his regiment on a furlough 
of four months. His first business was to 



LOVE AND WAR 33 

go to St. Louis and execute his promise to 
marry Miss Dent. The remainder of this 
honeymoon vacation was spent with his fam- 
ily and friends in Ohio. 



CHAPTER VI 

YEARS OF DORMANT POWER 

Although he had done excellent service, 
demonstrating his courage, his good judg- 
ment, his resourcefulness, his ability in com- 
mand, and in the staff duties of quarter- 
master and commissary, his experience did 
not kindle in him any new love for his pro- 
fession, nor any ardor of military glory. He 
had not revealed the possession of extraordi- 
nary talent, nor any spark of genius. He 
accounted the period of great value to him 
in his later life, but his heart was never en- 
listed in the cause for which the war was 
made. His letters home declared this. 
When he came to write his memoirs, speak- 
ing of the annexation of Texas, he said : 
" For myself I was bitterly opposed to the 
measure, and to this day regard the war 
which resulted as one of the most unjust 
ever waged by a stronger against a weaker 



YEARS OF DORMANT POWER 35 

nation. It was an instance of a republic 
following the bad example of European 
monarchies in not considering justice in their 
desire to acquire additional territory. . . . 
The Southern rebellion was largely the out- 
growth of the Mexican war. ... We got 
our punishment in the most sanguinary and 
expensive war of modern times." 

But the Mexican war changed Grant's 
plan of life. While he was at Jefferson 
Barracks he had applied for a place as in- 
structor of mathematics at West Point, and 
had received such encouragement that he 
devoted much time to reviewing his studies 
and extending them, giving more attention 
to history than ever before. After the war 
the notion of becoming a college professor 
appears to have left him. He regarded 
himself as bound to the service for the rest 
of his days. It was not so much his choice 
as his lot, and he accepted it, not because he 
relished it, but because he discovered no 
way out of it. This illustrates a negative 
trait of his character remarked throughout 
his career. He was never a pushing man. 



36 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

He had no self-seeking energy. The work 
that was assigned to him he did as well as 
he could ; but he had little art to recommend 
himself in immodest ways. He had not the 
vanity to presume that he would certainly 
succeed in strange enterprises. He shrank 
from the personal hostilities of ambition. 

Then followed a long period of unevent- 
ful routine service in garrisons at Detroit 
and at Sackett's Harbor, until in the sum- 
mer of 1852 his regiment was sent to the 
Pacific coast via the Panama route. The 
crossing of the isthmus was a terrible expe- 
rience, owing to the lack of proper provision 
for it and to an epidemic of cholera. The 
delay was of seven weeks' duration, and about 
one seventh of all who sailed on the steamer 
from New York died on the isthmus of dis- 
ease or of hardships. Lieutenant Grant, 
however, had no illness, and exhibited a 
humane devotion to the necessities of the 
unfortunate, civilians as well as soldiers. 
His company was destined to Fort Van- 
couver, in Oregon Territory, where he re- 
mained nearly a year, until, in order, he 



TEARS OF DORMANT POWER 37 

received promotion to a captaincy in a com- 
pany stationed at Humboldt Bay in Califor- 
nia. Here he remained until 1854, when 
he resigned from the army, because, as he 
says, he saw no prospect of being able to 
support his family on his pay, if he brought 
them — there were then two children — 
from St. Louis, where Mrs. Grant had re- 
mained with her family since he left New 
York. His resignation took effect, follow- 
ing a leave of absence, July 31, 1854. 

There was another cause, as told in army 
circles, for his resignation. He had become 
so addicted to drink that his resignation was 
required by his commanders, who held it for 
a time to afford him an opportunity to re- 
trieve his good fame if he would; but he 
was unable. Through what temptation he 
fell into such disgrace is not clearly known. 
But garrison posts are given to indulgences 
which have proved too much for many an 
officer, no worse than his fellows, but consti- 
tutionally unable to keep pace with men of 
different temperament. It might be thought 
that Grant was one unlikely to be easily 



38 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

affected ; but the testimony of his associates 
is that he was always a poor drinker, a small 
quantity of liquor overcoming him. 

He was now thirty-two years old, a hus- 
band and father, discharged from the service 
for which he had been educated, and with- 
out means of livelihood. His wife fortunately 
owned a small farm near St. Louis, but it 
was without a dwelling house. He had no 
means to stock it. He built a humble house 
there by his own hard labor. He cut wood 
and drew it to St. Louis for a market. In 
this way he lived for four years, when he 
was incapacitated for such work by an at- 
tack of fever and ague lasting nearly a year. 
There is no doubt that the veteran and his 
family experienced the rigors of want in 
these years; no question that neither his 
necessities nor his duties saved him from 
being sometimes overcome by his baneful 
habit. 

In the fall of 1858 the farm was sold. 
Grant embarked in the real estate agency 
business in St. Louis, and made sundry un- 
successful efforts to get a salaried place 



YEARS OF DORMANT POWER 39 

under the city government. But his fortunes 
did not improve. Finally in desperation he 
went in 1860 to his father for assistance. 
His father had established two younger sons 
in a hide and leather business in Galena, 111. 
Upon consultation they agreed to employ 
Ulysses as a clerk and helper, with the under- 
standing that he should not draw more 
than $800 a year. But he had debts in 
St. Louis, and to cancel these almost as much 
more had to be supplied to him the first 
year. His father has told that the advance 
was repaid as soon as he began earning 
money in the civil war. 

In Galena he was known to but few. 
Ambition for acquaintance seemed to have 
died in him. He was the victim of a great 
humiliation and was silent. He avoided 
publicity. He was destitute of presumption. 
What brighter hopes he cherished were due 
to his father's purpose to make him a part- 
ner with his brothers. He heard Lincoln 
and Douglas when they canvassed the State, 
and approved of the argument of the former 
rather than of the other. He had voted for 



40 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

Buchanan in 1856, his only vote for a Pre- 
sident before the war. In 1860 he had not 
acquired a right to vote in Illinois. 

These thirteen quiet years of Grant's life 
are not of account in his public career, but 
they are a phase of experience that left its 
deep traces in the character of the man. 
He was changed, and ever afterwards there 
was a tinge of melancholy and a haunting 
shadow of dark days in his life that could 
not be escaped. Nor in the pride and power 
of his after success did he completely con- 
quer the besetting weakness of his flesh. 
The years from twenty-six to thirty-nine in 
the lives of most men who ever amount to 
anything are years of steady development 
and acquisition, of high endeavor, of zealous, 
well-ordered upward progress, of growth in 
self-mastery and outward influence, of firm 
consolidation of character. These conditions 
are not obvious in the case of General Grant. 
Had he died before the summer of 1861, be- 
ing nearly forty years of age, he would have 
filled an obscure grave, and those to whom 






YEARS OF DORMANT POWER 41 

he was dearest could not have esteemed his 
life - successful, even in its humble scope. 
He had not yet found his opportunity : he 
had not yet found himself. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE SUMMONS OF PATRIOTISM 

The tide of patriotism that surged through 
the North after the fall of Fort Sumter in 
April, 1861, lifted many strong but dis- 
couraged men out of their plight of hard 
conditions and floated them on to better 
fortune. Grant was one of these. At last 
he found reason to be glad that he had the 
education and experience of a soldier. 

On Monday, April 15, 1861, Galena 
learned that Sumter had fallen. The next 
day there was a town meeting, where indig- 
nation and devotion found utterance. Over 
that meeting Captain Grant was called to 
preside, although few knew him. Elihu B. 
Washburn, the representative of the district 
in Congress, and John A. Eawlins, a rude, 
self-educated lawyer, who had been a farmer 
and a charcoal burner, made passionate, fiery 
speeches on the duty of every man to stand 



THE SUMMONS OF PATRIOTISM 43 

by the flag. At the close of that meeting 
Grant told his brothers that he felt that he 
must join the army, and he did no more work 
in the shop. How clearly he perceived the 
meaning of the conflict was shown in a letter 
to his father-in-law, wherein he wrote : " In 
all this I can see but the doom of slavery." 

He was offered the captaincy of the com- 
pany formed in Galena, and declined it, al- 
though he aided in organizing and drilling 
the men, and accompanied them to the state 
capital, Springfield. As he was about start- 
ing for home, he was asked by Governor 
Richard Yates to assist in the adjutant- 
general's office, and soon he was given charge 
of mustering in ten regiments that had been 
recruited in excess of the quota of the State, 
under the President's first call, in prepara- 
tion for possible additional calls. His know- 
ledge of army forms and methods was of 
great service to the inexperienced state offi- 
cers. 

Later, but without wholly severing his 
connection with the office, he returned home, 
and wrote a letter to the adjutant-general 



44 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

of the regular army, at Washing-ton, briefly 
setting forth his former service, and very re- 
spectfully tendering his service "until the 
close of the war in such capacity as may be 
offered," adding, that with his experience he 
felt that he was " competent to command a 
regiment, if the President should see fit to 
intrust one to him." The letter brought no 
reply. He went to Cincinnati and tried, 
unsuccessfully, to see General McClellan, 
whom he had known at West Point and in 
Mexico, hoping that he might be offered a 
place on his staff. While he was absent 
Governor Yates appointed him colonel of 
the Twenty-First Regiment of Illinois In- 
fantry, then in camp near Springfield, his 
commission dating from June 15. It was a 
thirty-day regiment, but almost every mem- 
ber reenlisted for three years, under the 
President's second call. Thus, two months 
after the breaking out of the war, he was 
again a soldier with a much higher com- 
mission than he had ever held, higher than 
would have come to him in regular order 
had he remained in the army. 



THE SUMMONS OF PATRIOTISM 45 

At Springfield he was in the centre of a 
great activity and a great enthusiasm. He 
met for the first time many leading men of 
the State, and became known to them. Their 
personality did not overwhelm him, famous 
and influential as many of them were, nor 
did he solicit from them any favor for him- 
self. His desire was to be restored to the 
regular army rather than to take command 
of volunteers. When the sought-for oppor- 
tunity did not appear, he accepted the place 
that was offered, a place in which he was 
needed ; for the first colonel, selected by the 
regiment itself, had already by his conduct 
lost their confidence. They exchanged him 
for Grant with high satisfaction. 



CHAPTER Vin 

FROM SPRINGFIELD TO FORT DONELSON 

The regiment remained at the camp, near 
Springfield, until the 3d of July, being then 
in a good state of discipline, and officers and 
men having become acquainted with com- 
pany drill. It was then ordered to Quincy, 
on the Mississippi River, and Colonel Grant, 
for reasons of instruction, decided to march 
his regiment instead of going by the rail- 
road. So began his advance, which ended 
less than four years later at Appomattox, 
when he was the captain of all the victorious 
Union armies, — holding a military rank 
none had held since Washington, — and a 
sure fame with the great captains of the 
world's history. The details of this wonder- 
ful progress can only be sketched in this lit- 
tle volume. It was not without its periods 
of gloom, and doubt, and check ; but, on the 
whole, it was steadily on and up. 



SPRINGFIELD TO FORT DONELSON 47 

His orders were changed at different times, 
until finally he was directed to proceed with 
all dispatch to the relief of an Illinois regi- 
ment, reported to be surrounded by rebels 
near Palmyra, Mo. Before the place was 
reached, the imperiled regiment had deliv- 
ered itself by retreating. He next expected 
to give battle at a place near the little 
town of Florida, in Missouri. As the regi- 
ment toiled over the hill beyond which the 
enemy was supposed to be waiting for him, 
he " would have given anything to be back 
in Illinois." Never having had the respon- 
sibility of command in a fight, he really dis- 
trusted his untried ability. When the top 
of the hill was reached, only a deserted 
camp appeared in front. " It occurred to me 
at once that Harris had been as much afraid 
of me as I had been of him. . . . From that 
event to the close of the war," he says in his 
book, " I never experienced trepidation upon 
confronting an enemy, though I always felt 
more or less anxiety. I never forgot that 
he had as much reason to fear my forces as 
I had [to fear] his." 



48 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

On August 7 he was appointed by the 
President a brigadier-general of volunteers, 
upon the unanimous recommendation of the 
congressmen from Illinois, most of whom 
were unknown to him. He had not won 
promotion by any fighting ; but generals 
were at that time made with haste to meet 
exigent requirement, a proportional num- 
ber being selected from each loyal State. 
Among those whom General Grant ap- 
pointed on his staff was John A. Rawlins, 
the Galena lawyer, who was made adjutant- 
general, with the rank of captain, and who 
as long as he lived continued near Grant in 
some capacity, dying while serving as Secre- 
tary of War in the first term of Grant's pre- 
sidency. He was an officer of high ability and 
personal loyalty. He alone had the audacity 
to interpose a resolute no, when his chief was 
disposed to over-indulgence in liquor. He did 
not always prevent him, but it is doubtful 
whether Grant would not have fallen by the 
way without the constant, imperative watch- 
fulness of his faithful friend. There were 
times when both army and people were im- 



SPRINGFIELD TO FORT DONELSON 49 

patient with him, not wholly without reason. 
Nothing saved him then but President Lin- 
coln's confidence and charity. The reply to 
all complaints was : " This man fights ; he 
cannot be spared." 

In the last days of August, having been 
occupied, meantime, in reducing to order dis- 
tracted and disaffected communities in Mis- 
souri, he was assigned to command of a 
military district embracing all southwestern 
Missouri and southern Illinois. He estab- 
lished his headquarters at Cairo, early in 
September, and from there he promptly led 
an expedition that forestalled the hostile in- 
tention of seizing Paducah, a strategical point 
at the mouth of the Tennessee River. This 
was his first important military movement, 
and it was begun upon his own initiative. 
His first battle was fought at Belmont, Mo., 
opposite Columbus, Ky., on the Mississippi 
River, on November 7, 1861. Grant, in 
command of a force of about 3000 men, 
was demonstrating against Columbus, held 
by the enemy. Learning that a force had 
been sent across the river to Belmont, he dis- 



50 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

embarked his troops from their transports 
and attacked. The men were under fire for 
the first time, but they drove the enemy and 
captured the camp. They came near being 
cut off, however, through the inexperience 
and silly recklessness of subordinate officers. 
By dint of hard work and great personal 
risk on the part of their commander, they 
were got safely away. It was an all-day 
struggle, during which General Grant had a 
horse shot under him, and made several nar- 
row escapes, being the last man to reem- 
bark. The Union losses were 485 killed, 
wounded, and missing. The loss of the 
enemy was officially reported as 632. This 
battle was criticised at the time as unneces- 
sary ; but General Grant always asserted the 
contrary. The enemy was prevented from 
detaching troops from Columbus, and the 
national forces acquired a confidence in them- 
selves that was of great value ever after- 
wards. Grant's governing maxim was, to 
strike the enemy whenever possible, and 
keep doing it. 

From the battle of Belmont until Febru- 



SPRINGFIELD TO FORT DONELSON 51 

ary, 1862, there was no fighting by Grant's 
army. Troops were concentrated at Cairo 
for future operations — not yet decided upon. 
Major-General H. W. Halleck superseded 
General Fremont in command of the depart- 
ment of Missouri. Halleck was an able 
man, having a high reputation as theoretical 
master of the art of war, one of those who 
put a large part of all their energy into the 
business of preparing to do some great task, 
only to find frequently, when they are com- 
pletely ready, that the occasion has gone by. 
When he was first approached with a propo- 
sition to capture Forts Henry and Donelson, 
the first on the Tennessee River, the other 
on the Cumberland River, where the rivers 
are only a few miles apart near the southern 
border of Kentucky, he thought that it 
would require an army of "not less than 
60,000 effective men," which could not be 
collected at Cairo " before the middle or last 
of February." 

Early in January General Grant went to 
St. Louis to explain his ideas of a campaign 
against these forts to Halleck, who told him 



52 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

his scheme was " preposterous." On the 
28th he ventured again to suggest to Hal- 
leck by telegraph that, if permitted, he could 
take and hold Fort Henry on the Tennessee. 
His application was seconded by flag officer 
Foote of the navy, who then had command 
of several gunboats at Cairo. On February 
1, he received instructions to go ahead, and 
the expedition, all preparations having been 
made beforehand, started the next day, the 
gunboats and about 9000 men on transports 
going up the Ohio and the Tennessee to a 
point a few miles below Fort Henry. After 
the troops were disembarked the transports 
went back to Paducah for the remainder of 
the force of 17,000 constituting the expe- 
ditionary army. The attack was made on 
the 6th, but the garrison had evacuated, 
going toward Fort Donelson, to escape the 
fire of the gunboats. General Tilghman, 
commanding the fort, his staff, and about 
120 men were captured, with many guns and 
a large quantity of stores. The principal 
loss on the Union side was the scalding of 
29 men on the gunboat Essex by the explo- 



SPRINGFIELD TO FORT DONELSON 53 

sion of her boiler, pierced by a shell from 
the fort. 

Grant had no instructions to attack Fort 
Donelson, but he had none forbidding him 
to do it. He straightway moved nearly his 
whole force over the eleven miles of dread- 
ful roads, and on the 12th began investing 
the stronghold, an earthwork inclosing about 
100 acres, with outworks on the land and 
water sides, and defended by more than 
20,000 men commanded by General Floyd, 
who had been President Buchanan's Secre- 
tary of War. The investing force had its 
right near the river above the fort. The 
weather was alternately wet and freezing 
cold. The troops had no shelter, and suf- 
fered greatly. On the 14th, without serious 
opposition, the investment was completed. 
At three o'clock in the afternoon of the 
14th, flag officer Foote began the attack, the 
fleet of gunboats steaming up the river and 
firing as rapidly as possible; but several 
were disabled by the enemy's fire, and all 
had to fall back before nightfall. The 
enemy telegraphed to Richmond that a great 
victory had been achieved. 



54 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

On the next day, Grant, riding several 
miles to the river, met Foote on his gun- 
boat, to which he was confined by a wound 
received the day before. Returning, he 
found that a large force from the fort had 
made a sortie upon a part of his line, but 
had been driven back after a severe contest. 
It was found that the haversacks of the 
Confederates left on the field contained 
three days' rations. Instantly, Grant rea- 
soned that the intention was not so much to 
drive him away as to break through his line 
and escape. He ordered a division that had 
not been engaged to advance at once, and 
before night it had established a position 
within the outer lines of defense. Surrender 
or capture the next day was the fate of the 
Confederates. 

During the night General Floyd and 
General Pillow, next in command, and Gen- 
eral Forest made their escape with about 
4000 men. Before light the next morning, 
General Grant received a note from General 
S. B. Buckner, who was left in command of 
the fort, suggesting the appointment of com- 



SPRINGFIELD TO FORT DONELSON 55 

missioners to agree upon terms of capitula- 
tion, and meanwhile an armistice until noon. 
To this note General Grant sent the curt 
reply : " No terms except an unconditional 
and immediate surrender can be accepted. 
I propose to move immediately upon your 
works." General Buckner sent back word 
that he was compelled by circumstances " to 
accept the ungenerous and unchivalrous 
terms " which had been proposed. 

This victory electrified the whole North, 
then greatly in need of cheer. General 
Grant became the hero of the hour. His 
name was honored and his exploit lauded 
from one end of the country to the other. 
It was not yet a year since he had been an 
obscure citizen of an obscure town. Already 
many regarded him as the nation's hope. 
A phrase from his note to General Buckner 
was fitted to his initials, and he was every- 
where hailed as " Unconditional Surrender " 
Grant. 

In this campaign he first revealed the pe- 
culiar traits of his military genius, clear 
discernment of possibilities, comprehension 



56 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

of the requirements of the situation, strate- 
gical instinct, accurate estimate of the 
enemy's motive and plan, sagacious prompt- 
ness of action in exigencies, staunch resolu- 
tion, inspiring energy, invincible poise. For 
his achievement he was promoted to be a 
major-general of volunteers. He had found 
himself now. 



CHAPTER IX 

SHILOH, CORINTH, IUKA 

On the 4th of March, sixteen days after 
his victory, he was in disgrace. General 
Halleck ordered him to turn over the com- 
mand of the army to General C. F. Smith and 
to remain himself at Fort Henry. This action 
of Halleck was the consequence partly of 
accidents which had prevented communica- 
tion between them and caused Halleck to 
think him insubordinate, partly of false re- 
ports to Halleck that Grant was drinking to 
excess, partly of Halleck's dislike of Grant, 
— a temperamental incapacity of appreci- 
ation. After Donelson he issued a general 
order of congratulation of Grant and Foote 
for the victory, but he sent no personal con- 
gratulations, and reported to Washington 
that the victory was due to General Smith, 
whose promotion, not Grant's, he recom- 
mended. As to the reports of Grant's 



58 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

drinking, they were decisively contradicted 
by Rawlins, to whom the authorities in 
Washington applied for information. He 
asserted that Grant had drunk no liquor 
during the campaign except a little, by the 
surgeon's prescription, on one occasion when 
attacked by ague. The fault of failing to 
report his movements and to answer inquiries 
was later found to be due to a telegraph 
operator hostile to the Union cause, who did 
not forward Grant's reports to Halleck nor 
Halleck's orders to Grant. 

Grant's mortification was intense. Since 
the fall of Donelson he had been full of ac- 
tivities. The enemy had fallen back, his 
first line being broken, and Grant was 
scheming to follow up his advantage by 
pushing on through Tennessee, driving the 
discouraged Confederate forces before him. 
He had visited Nashville to confer with 
General Buell, who had reached that city, 
and it was on his return that he received 
Halleck's dispatch of removal. For several 
days he was in dreadful distress of mind, and 
contemplated resigning his commission. It 



SHILOH, CORINTH, IUKA 59 

seemed as if Fate had cut off his career just 
as it had gloriously begun. But he made 
no public complaint. He obeyed orders and 
waited at Fort Henry. To some of his 
friends he said that he would never wear a 
sword again. But on the 13th he was re- 
stored to command. Halleck became aware 
of the facts, and made a report vindicating 
Grant's conduct, of which he sent him a copy. 
It was not until after the war that Grant 
learned that Halleck's previous reports had 
caused his degradation. 

His first battle after restoration to com- 
mand was an unfortunate one in the begin- 
ning, but was turned into a victory. He 
was advancing on Corinth, Miss., a railroad 
centre of the Southwest, where a large Con- 
federate army under General Albert Sidney 
Johnston was collecting. All the available 
Union forces in the West were gathering* 
to meet it. Grant had selected Pittsburg 
Landing on the Tennessee River, twenty 
miles from Corinth, as the place for landing 
his forces, and Hamburg Landing, four miles 
up the river, as the starting point for Buell's 



60 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

army in marching on Corinth. Buell was 
hastening to the rendezvous, coming through 
Tennessee with a large force. On the 4th 
of April Grant's horse fell while he was 
reconnoitring at night, and the general's leg 
was badly bruised but not broken. 

Expecting to make an offensive campaign 
and meet the enemy at Corinth, he had not 
enjoined intrenchment of the temporary 
camp. So great was the confidence that 
Johnston would await attack that the enemy's 
proximity in force was discovered too late. 
Johnston led his whole army out of Cor- 
inth, and early on the morning of the 6th of 
April surprised Sherman's division encamped 
at Shiloh, three miles from Pittsburg Land- 
ing, attacking with a largely superior force. 
The battle raged all day, with heavy losses 
on both sides, the Union army being gradu- 
ally forced back to Pittsburg Landing. 
Five divisions were engaged, three of them 
composed of raw troops, and many regiments 
were in a demoralized condition at night. 

On the next day the Union army, rein- 
forced by Buell's 20,000 men, advanced, at- 



SHILOH, CORINTH, IUKA 61 

tacking the enemy early in the morning, with 
furious determination. The Confederate 
forces, although weakened, were determined 
not to lose the advantage gained, and fought 
with desperate stubbornness. But it was 
in vain. A necessity of vindicating their 
courage was felt by officers and men of the 
Union Army. They had fully recovered 
from the effects of the surprise, and pressed 
forward with zealous assurance. Before the 
day was done Grant had won the field 
and compelled a disorderly retreat. In this 
battle the commander of the Confederate 
army, General Albert Sidney Johnston, was 
killed in the first day's fighting, the com- 
mand devolving on General G. T. Beaure- 
gard. On the first day the Union forces on 
the field numbered about 33,000 against the 
enemy's above 40,000. On the second day 
the Union forces were superior. The Union 
losses in the two days were 1754 killed, 8408 
wounded, and 2885 missing ; total 13,047. 
Beauregard reported a total loss of 10,694, 
of whom 1723 were killed. General Grant 
says that the Union army buried more of the 



62 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

enemy's dead than is here reported in front 
of Sherman's and McClernand's divisions 
alone, and that the total number buried was 
estimated at 4000. 

The battles of Shiloh and Pittsburg Land- 
ing together constitute one of the critical 
conflicts of the long war. Had the Con- 
federate success of the first day been re- 
peated and completed on the second day, it 
woidd have been difficult, if not impossible, 
to prevent the enemy from possessing Ten- 
nessee and a large part of Kentucky. 

After this battle General Halleck came 
to Pittsburg Landing and took command of 
all the armies in that department. Although 
General Grant was second in command, he 
was not in General Halleck's confidence, and 
was contemptuously disregarded in the direc- 
tion of affairs. Halleck proceeded to make 
a safe campaign against Corinth by road- 
building and parallel intrenchments. He 
got there and captured it, indeed, having 
been a month on the way, but the rebel 
army, with all its equipments, guns, and 
stores, had escaped beforehand. Grant's po- 



SHILOH, CORINTH, IUKA 63 

sit ion was so embarrassing that during Hal- 
leck's advance he made several earnest ap- 
plications to be relieved. Halleck would 
not let him go, apparently thinking that he 
needed to be instructed by an opportunity 
of observing how a great soldier made war. 
What Grant really learned was how not to 
make war. 

After the fall of Corinth he was permit- 
ted to make his headquarters at Memphis, 
while Halleck proceeded to construct defen- 
sive works on an immense scale. But in 
July Halleck was appointed commander-in- 
chief of all the armies, with his headquar- 
ters in Washington, and Grant returned to 
Corinth. He was the ranking officer in the 
department, but was not formally assigned 
to the command until October. The inter- 
mediate time was spent, for the most part, in 
defensive operations in the enemy's country, 
the great army that entered Corinth having 
been scattered east, north, and west to vari- 
ous points. Two important battles were 
fought, by one of which an attempt to retake 
Corinth was defeated. The other was at 



64 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

Iuka, in Mississippi, where a considerable 
Confederate force was defeated. 

In this period the energy and resource- 
fulness of General Grant were conspicuous, 
although nothing that occurred added largely 
to his reputation. He was, however, gather- 
ing stores of useful experience while operat- 
ing in the heart of the enemy's country, 
where every inhabitant, except the negroes, 
was hostile. Both of the battles mentioned 
above were nearly lost by failure of his sub- 
ordinates to render expected service accord- 
ing to orders ; but he suffered no defeat. The 
service was wearing, but he was equal to all 
demands made upon him. 



CHAPTER X 

VICKSBURG 

Vicksburg had long been the hard mili- 
tary problem of the Southwest. The city, 
which had been made a fortress, was at the 
summit of a range of high bluffs, two hun- 
dred and fifty feet above the east bank of 
the Mississippi River, near the mouth of the 
Yazoo. It was provided with batteries along 
the river front and on the bank of the Ya- 
zoo to Haines's Bluff. A continuous line of 
fortifications surrounded the city on the crest 
of the hill. This hill, the slopes of which 
were cut by deep ravines, was difficult of 
ascent in any part in the face of hostile de- 
fenders. The back country was swampy 
bottom land, covered with a rank growth of 
timber, intersected with lagoons and almost 
impassable except by a few rude roads. The 
opposite side of the river was an extensive 
wooded morass. 



66 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

In May, 1862, flag officer Farragut, com- 
ing up the Mississippi from New Orleans, 
had demanded the surrender of the city and 
been refused. In the latter part of June he 
returned with flag officer Porter's mortar 
flotilla and bombarded the city for four 
weeks without gaining his end. In Novem- 
ber, 1862, General Grant started with an 
army from Grand Junction, intending to 
approach Vicksburg by the way of the Yazoo 
River and attack it in the rear. But Gen- 
eral Van Dorn captured Holly Springs, his 
depot of supplies, and the project was aban- 
doned. 

The narration, with any approach to com- 
pleteness, of the story of the campaign 
against Vicksburg would require a volume. 
It was a protracted, baffling, desperate 
undertaking to obtain possession of the for- 
tifications that commanded the Mississippi 
River at that point. Grant was not una- 
ware of the magnitude of the work, nor was 
he eager to attempt it under the conditions 
existing. He believed that, in order to their 
greatest efficiency, all the armies operating 



VICKSBURG 67 

between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi 
should be subject to one commander, and he 
made this suggestion to the War Department, 
at the same time testifying his disinterested- 
ness by declining in advance to take the 
supreme command himself. His suggestion 
was not immediately adopted. On the 2 2d 
of December, 1862, General Grant, whose 
headquarters were then at Holly Springs, 
reorganized his army into four corps, the 
13th, 15th, 16th, and 17th, commanded 
respectively by Major-Generals John A. 
McClernand, William T. Sherman, S. A. 
Hurlbut, and J. B. McPherson. Soon after- 
wards he established his headquarters at 
Memphis, and in January began the move 
on Vicksburg, which, after immense labors 
and various failures of plans, resulted in the 
surrender of that fortress on July 4, 1863. 
He first sent Sherman, in whose enter- 
prise and ability to take care of himself 
he had full confidence, giving him only 
general instructions. Sherman landed his 
army on the east side of the river, above 
Vicksburg, and made a direct assault, which 



68 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

proved unsuccessful, and he was compelled 
to reembark his defeated troops* The im- 
practicability of successful assault on the 
north side was then accepted. General Mc- 
Clernand's corps on the 11th of January, 
aided by the navy under Admiral Porter, 
captured Arkansas Post on the White River, 
taking 6000 prisoners, 17 guns, and a large 
amount of military stores. 

On the 17th, Grant went to the front and 
had a conference with Sherman, McCler- 
nand, and Porter, the upshot of which was 
a direction to rendezvous on the west bank 
in the vicinity of Vicksburg. McClernand 
was disaffected, having sought at Washing- 
ton the command of an expedition against 
Vicksburg and been led to exj>ect it. He 
wrote a letter to Grant so insolent that the 
latter was advised to relieve him of all com- 
mand and send him to the rear. Instead of 
doing so, he gave him every possible favor 
and opportunity ; but months afterwards, in 
front of Vicksburg, McClernand was guilty 
of a breach of discipline which could not be 
overlooked, and he was deprived of his com- 
mand. 



VICKSBURG 69 

Throughout the war Grant was notably 
considerate and charitable in respect of the 
mistakes and the temper of subordinates if 
he thought them to be patriotic and capable. 
His rapid rise excited the jealousy and per- 
sonal hostility of many ambitious generals. 
Of this he was conscious, but he did not 
suffer himself to be affected by it so long as 
there was no failure in duty. The reply he 
made to those who asked him to remove 
McClernand revealed the principle of his 
action : " No. I cannot afford to quarrel 
with a man whom I have to command." 

The Union army, having embarked at 
Memphis, was landed on the west bank of 
the Mississippi River, and the first work un- 
dertaken was the digging of a canal across 
a peninsula that would allow passage of the 
transports to the Mississippi below Vicks- 
burg, where they could be used to ferry the 
army across the river, there being higher 
ground south of the city from which it could 
be approached more easily than from any 
other point. After weeks of labor, the 
scheme had to be abandoned as impracti- 



70 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

cable. Then various devices for opening 
and connecting bayous were tried, none of 
them proving useful. The army not en- 
gaged in digging or in cutting through ob- 
structing timbers was encamped along the 
narrow levee, the only dry land available in 
the season of flood. Thus three months 
were seemingly wasted without result. The 
aspect of affairs was gloomy and desperate. 
The North became impatient and began 
grumbling against the general, doubting his 
ability, even clamoring for his removal. He 
made no reply, nor suffered his friends to 
defend him. He simply worked on in si- 
lence. Stories of his incapacity on account 
of drinking were rife, and it may have been 
the case that under the dreary circumstances 
and intense strain he did sometimes yield to 
this temptation. But he never yielded his 
aim, never relaxed his grim purpose. Vicks- 
burg must fall. As soon as one plan failed 
of success another was put in operation. 
When every scheme of getting the vessels 
through the by-ways failed, one thing re- 
mained, — to send the gunboats and trans- 



VICKSBURG 71 

ports past Vicksburg by the river, defy- 
ing the frowning batteries and whatever 
impediments might be met. Six gunboats 
and several steamers ran by the batteries on 
the night of April 16th, under a tremendous 
fire, the river being lighted up by burning 
houses on the shore. Barges and flatboats 
followed on other nights. Then Grant's 
way to reach Vicksburg was found ; but it 
was not an easy one, nor unopposed. A 
place of landing on the east side was to be 
sought. The navy failed to silence the Con- 
federate batteries at Grand Gulf, twenty 
miles below Vicksburg, so that a landing 
could be effected there, and the fleet ran 
past it, as it had run by Vicksburg. Ten 
miles farther down the river a landing place 
was found at Bruinsburg. By daylight, on 
the 1st of May, McClernand's corps and 
part of McPherson's had been ferried across, 
leaving behind all impedimenta, even the 
officers' horses, and fighting had already be- 
gun in rear of Port Gibson, about eight 
miles from the landing. The enemy made 
a desperate stand, but was defeated with 



72 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

heavy loss. Grand Gulf was evacuated that 
night, and the place became thenceforth a 
base of operations. Grant had defeated the 
enemy's calculation by the celerity with 
which he had transferred a large force. He 
slept on the ground with his soldiers, with- 
out a tent or even an overcoat for covering. 

General Joseph E. Johnston had super- 
seded General Beauregard in command of 
all the Confederate forces of the Southwest. 
His business was to succor General Peniber- 
ton and drive Grant back into the river. 
Sherman with his corps joined Grant on the 
8th. Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, a 
Confederate railroad centre and depot of 
supplies, was captured on the 14th, the de- 
fense being made by Johnston himself. Then 
Pemberton's whole army from Vicksburg, 
25,000 men, was encountered, defeated, and 
forced to retire into the fortress, after losing 
nearly 5000 men and 18 guns. On the 
18th of May Grant's army reached Vicks- 
burg and the actual siege began. 

Since May 1, Grant had won five hard 
battles, killed and wounded 5200 of the 



VICKSBURG 73 

enemy, captured 40 field guns, nearly 5000 
prisoners, and a fortified city, compelled the 
abandonment of Grand Gulf and Haines's 
Bluff, with their 20 heavy guns, destroyed 
all the railroads and bridges available by 
the enemy, separated their armies, which 
altogether numbered 60,000 men, while his 
own numbered but 45,000, and had com- 
pletely invested Vicksburg. It was an as- 
tonishing exhibition of courage, energy, and 
military genius, calculated to confound his 
critics and reestablish him in the confidence 
of the people. It has been said that there 
is nothing in history since Hannibal invaded 
Italy that is comparable with it. 

The incidents of the siege, abounding in 
difficult and heroic action, including an 
early unsuccessful assault, must be passed 
over. Preparations had been made and 
directions given for a general assault on 
the works on the morning of July 5. But 
on the 3d General Pemberton sent out a 
flag of truce asking, as Buckner did at Don- 
elson, for the appointment of commissioners 
to arrange terms of capitulation. Grant de- 



74 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

clined to appoint commissioners or to accept 
any terms but unconditional surrender, with 
humane treatment of all prisoners of war. 
He, however, offered to meet Pemberton 
himself, who had been at West Point and 
in Mexico with him, and confer regarding 
details. This meeting was held, and on the 
4th of July Grant took possession of the 
city. The Confederates surrendered about 
30,000 men, 172 cannon, and 50,000 small 
arms, besides military stores ; but there was 
little food left. Grant's losses during the 
whole campaign were 1415 killed, 7395 
wounded, 453 missing. When the paroled 
prisoners were ready to march out, Grant 
ordered the Union soldiers "to be orderly 
and quiet as these prisoners pass," and " to 
make no offensive remarks." 

This great victory was coincident with the 
repulse of Lee at Gettysburg, and the effect 
of the two events was a wonderfully in- 
spiriting influence upon the country. Pre- 
sident Lincoln wrote to General Grant a 
characteristic letter " as a grateful acknow- 
ledgment of the almost inestimable service 



VICKSBURG 75 

you have done the country." In it he said : 
" I never had any faith, except a general 
hope that you knew better than I, that the 
Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could 
succeed. When you got below and took 
Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I 
thought you should go down the river and 
join General Banks [besieging Port Hud- 
son] ; and when you turned northward, east 
of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. 
I now wish to make a personal acknow- 
ledgment that you were right and I was 
wrong." 

Port Hudson surrendered to General 
Banks, to whom Grant sent reinforcements 
as soon as Vicksburg fell, on the 8 th of 
July, with 10,000 more prisoners and 50 
guns. This put the Union forces in posses- 
sion of the Mississippi River all the way to 
the Gulf. 

Grant now appeared to the nation as the 
foremost hero of the war. The disparage- 
ments and personal scandals so rife a few 
months before were silenced and forgotten. 
He was believed to be invincible. That he 



76 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

never boasted, never publicly resented criti- 
cism, never courted applause, never quar- 
reled with his superiors, but endured, toiled, 
and fought in calm fidelity, consulting chiefly 
with himself, never wholly baffled, and al- 
ways triumphant in the end, had shown the 
nation a man of a kind the people had 
longed for and in whom they proudly re- 
joiced. The hopes to which Donelson had 
given birth were confirmed in the hero of 
Vicksburg, who was straightway made a 
major-general in the regular army, from 
which, when a first lieutenant, he had re- 
signed nine years before. 



CHAPTER XI 

NEW KESPONSIBILITIES CHATTANOOGA 

Halleck, issuing orders from Washing- 
ton, proceeded to disperse Grant's army 
hither and yon as he thought fractions of 
it to be needed. Grant wanted to move on 
Mobile from Lake Pontchartrain, but was 
not permitted to do it. Having gone to 
New Orleans in obedience to a necessity of 
conference with General Banks, he suffered 
a severe injury by the fall of a fractious 
horse, as he was returning from a review of 
Banks's army. For a long time he was 
unconscious. As soon as he could be moved 
he was taken on a bed to a steamer. For 
several days after reaching Vicksburg he 
was unable to leave his bed. Meantime he 
was repeatedly called upon to send reinforce- 
ments to Rosecrans, in Chattanooga, to 
which place the latter had retreated after 
the repulse of his army at Chickamauga, 



78 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

September 19 and 20. On October 3, 
Grant was directed to go to Cairo and re- 
port by telegraph to the Secretary of War 
as soon as he was able to take the field. He 
started on the same day, ill as he still was. 
On arriving in Cairo he was ordered to pro- 
ceed to Louisville. He was met at Indi- 
anapolis by Secretary Stanton, whom he 
had never before seen, and they proceeded 
together. 

On the train Secretary Stanton handed 
him two orders, telling him to take his 
choice of them. Both created the military 
division of the Mississippi, including all the 
territory between the Alleghanies and the 
Mississippi Eiver, north of General Banks's 
department, and assigning command of it to 
Grant. One order left the commanders of 
the three departments, the Ohio, the Cum- 
berland, and the Tennessee, as they were, 
the other relieved General Rosecrans, com- 
manding the Army of the Cumberland, and 
assigned Gen. George H. Thomas to his 
place. General Grant accepted the latter. 
This consolidation was a late compliance 



CHATTANOOGA 79 

with his earnest, unselfish counsel given be- 
fore the Vicksburg campaign. Its wisdom 
had become apparent. 

The centre of interest and anxiety now 
was Chattanooga, in East Tennessee, near 
the border of Georgia. The Confederates 
had been striving to retrieve the ground 
lost, since the fall of Fort Henry, by push- 
ing northward in this direction. Halleck's 
dispersion of forces had sent Buell to this 
section, and Buell had been superseded by 
Rosecrans, a zealous and patriotic but unfor- 
tunate commander. The repulse at Chick- 
amauga might have proved disastrous to his 
army but for the splendid behavior of the 
division under General Thomas, an officer 
not unlike Grant in the mould of his mili- 
tary talent, who there earned the sobriquet, 
" The Rock of Chickamauga." 

The army of Rosecrans had been gath- 
ered again at Chattanooga, where it was 
confronted by Bragg, whose force surrounded 
it in an irregular semicircle from the Ten- 
nessee River to the river again, occupying 
Missionary Ridge on one flank and Lookout 



80 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

Mountain on the other, with its centre 
where these two ridges come nearly together. 
Chattanooga was in the valley between, near 
the centre of which, behind the town, was an 
elevation, Orchard Knob, held by the enemy. 
Bragg commanded the river and the rail- 
roads. The route for supplies was circuit- 
ous, inadequate, and insecure, over mountain 
roads that had become horrible. Horses and 
mules had perished by thousands. The sol- 
diers were on half rations. Word came to 
Grant in Louisville, that Kosecrans was con- 
templating a retreat. He at once issued an 
order assuming his new command, notified 
Eosecrans that he was relieved, and in- 
structed Thomas to hold the place at all 
hazards until he reached the front. 

Still so lame that he could not walk with- 
out crutches, and had to be carried in arms 
over places where it was not safe to go on 
horseback, he left Louisville on the 21st of 
October, and reached Chattanooga on the 
evening of the 23d. Then began a work of 
masterly activity and preparation, in which 
his genius again asserted its supreme qual- 



CHATTANOOGA 81 

ity. Sherman with his army was ordered 
to join Grant. In five days the river road 
to Bridgeport was opened, the enemy being 
driven from the banks, two bridges were 
built, and Hooker's army added to his force. 
The enemy, having a much superior force, 
and assuming the surrender of the Army of 
the Cumberland to be only a question of time 
and famine, sent Longstreet with 15,000 
men to reinforce the army of Johnston, 
holding Burnside in Knoxville, to the relief 
of whom the enemy supposed Sherman to 
be marching. Grant waited for Sherman, 
who was coming on between Longstreet and 
Bragg. All general orders for the battle 
were prepared in advance, except their dates. 
Sherman reached Chattanooga on the even- 
ing of the 15th, and with Grant inspected 
the field on the 16th. Sherman's army, 
holding the left, was to cross to the south 
side of the river and assail Missionary Ridge. 
Hooker, on the right, was to press through 
from Lookout valley into Chattanooga val- 
ley. Thomas, in the centre, was to press 
forward through the valley and strike the 



82 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

enemy's centre while his wings were thus 
fully engaged, or as soon as Hooker's sup- 
port was available. 

The battle began on the afternoon of Octo- 
ber 23. Orchard Knob, in the centre of the 
great amphitheatre, was attacked and cap- 
tured, and became the Union headquarters. 
On the 24th Sherman crossed the river and 
established his army on the north end of 
Missionary Ridge. On the morning of the 
same day Hooker assailed Lookout Mountain, 
and after a long climbing fight, lasting far 
into the night, secured his position ; and the 
enemy, who had occupied the mountain, re- 
treated across the valley at its upper end to 
Missionary Ridge. Grant's forces were now 
in touch from right to left. Everything so 
far had gone well. 

Early on the next morning Sherman opened 
the attack. The ridge in his front was ex- 
ceedingly favorable for defense, and during 
the whole night the enemy had been at work 
strengthening the position. Sherman's first 
assault failed, but he continued pressing the 
enemy with resolution, although making little 



CHATTANOOGA 83 

progress. From Grant's place on Orchard 
Knob he watched the struggle. At three 
o'clock he saw Sherman's right repulsed. 
Then he gave to Thomas, standing at his 
side, the order to advance. Six guns were 
fired as a signal, and the Army of the Cum- 
berland moved forward in splendid array to 
avenge Chickamauga. The immediate pur- 
pose was to carry the rebel rifle pits at the 
foot of the Ridge. This done, the soldiers 
were subjected to a galling fire from the line 
800 feet above them. As by inspiration, they 
rushed on, climbing as they could, by aid of 
rocks and bushes, and using their guns as 
staves. They reached the crest and swept it 
in a mighty fury. It was the decisive action. 
All the columns now converged on the dis- 
tracted foe who fled before them. Grant gal- 
loped to the front with all speed, urging on 
the pursuit and exposing himself to every 
hazard of the fight. 

So Chattanooga was added to Grant's 
lengthening score of brilliant victories ; and 
again, as at Donelson and at Vicksburg, he 
had been the instrument of relieving a tense 



84 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

oppression of anxiety that had settled upon 
the nation. Sherman, with two corps, was 
at once sent to the relief of Knoxville ; but 
Longstreet, having heard of Bragg 1 s defeat, 
made an unsuccessful assault and retreated 
into Virginia. By the administration in 
Washington, and by the people of the 
North, General Grant's preeminence was 
conceded. His star shone brightest of all. 
Congress voted a gold medal for him. 



CHAPTER XII 

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL, COMMANDER OF ALL 
THE ARMIES 

During the winter, after the Chattanooga 
victory, General Grant made his headquar- 
ters at Nashville, and devoted himself to ac- 
quiring an intimate knowledge of the condi- 
tion of the large region now under his com- 
mand, to the reorganization of his own lines 
of transportation, and the destruction of those 
of the enemy. He made a perilous journey 
to Knoxville in the dead of winter, and a 
brief trip to St. Louis, on account of the 
dangerous illness of his son there. On this 
trip he wore citizen's clothes, traveled as 
quietly as possible, declined all public hon- 
ors, and made no delays. The whole route 
might have been a continuous enthusiastic 
ovation ; but he would not have it so. His 
work was not done, and he sternly discoun- 
tenanced all premature glorification. Too 



86 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

many generals had fallen from a high estate 
in the popular judgment, for him to court a 
similar fate. The promotions that gave him 
greater opportunity of service he accepted ; 
but he preferred to keep his capital of popu- 
larity, whatever it might be, on deposit and 
accumulating while he stuck to his unaccom- 
plished task, instead of drawing upon it as 
he went along for purposes of vanity and 
display. Of vulgar vanity he had as little 
as any soldier in the army. 

Nashville was the base of supplies for all 
the operations in his military division. Its 
lines of transportation had been worn out 
and broken down, largely through incompe- 
tent management. He put them in charge 
of new men, who reconstructed and equipped 
them. While engaged in this necessary 
work he dispatched Sherman on an expedi- 
tion through Mississippi, which he hoped 
would reach Mobile ; but it terminated at 
Meriden, through failure of a cavalry force 
to join it. But it did a work in destruction 
of railroads and railroad property, that in- 
flicted immense damage on the Confederacy. 



LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 87 

Throughout the winter Grant worked as if 
his reputation was yet to be made, and to 
be made in that military division. 

Meanwhile Congress and the country were 
pondering his deserts, and his ability for still 
greater responsibilities. The result of this 
deliberation was the passage of the act, ap- 
proved March 1, 1864, reestablishing the 
grade of lieutenant-general in the regular 
army. The next day President Lincoln 
nominated General Grant to the rank, and 
the nomination was promptly confirmed. He 
was ordered to Washington to receive the 
supreme commission. It was his first visit 
to the national capital ; his first personal in- 
troduction to the President, although he had 
heard him make a speech many years be- 
fore ; his first meeting with the leading men 
in civil official life, who were sustaining the 
armies and guiding the nation in its imper- 
iled way. He came crowned with the glory 
of victories second in magnitude and sig- 
nificance to none, since Wellington defeated 
Napoleon at Waterloo. Everybody desired 
to see him, and to honor him. 



88 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

Yet he journeyed to Washington as sim- 
ply and quietly as possible, avoiding demon- 
stration. He arrived on the 8th of March, 
and going to a hotel waited, unrecognized, 
until the throng of travelers had registered, 
and then wrote, simply, "U. S. Grant and 
son, Galena." The next day, at 1 o'clock, 
he was received by President Lincoln in the 
cabinet-room of the White House. There 
were present, by the President's invitation, 
the members of the cabinet, General Hal- 
leck, and a few other distinguished men. 
After introductions the President addressed 
him as follows : — 

" General Grant, — The expression of 
the nation's approbation of what you have 
already done, and its reliance on you for 
what remains to be done in the existing 
great struggle, are now presented with this 
commission, constituting you lieutenant-gen- 
eral in the army of the United States. 
With the high honor, devolves on you an 
additional responsibility. As the country 
herein trusts you, so, under God, it will sus- 
tain you. I scarcely need to add, that with 



LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 89 

what I here speak for the nation goes my 
own hearty personal concurrence." 

General Grant made the following re- 

pty : — 

" Mr. President, — I accept the com- 
mission with gratitude for the high honor 
conferred. With the aid of the noble armies 
that have fought on so many battlefields for 
our common country, it will be my earnest 
endeavor not to disappoint your expecta- 
tions. I feel the full weight of the responsi- 
bilities now devolving upon me ; and I know 
that if they are met, it will be due to those 
armies ; and, above all, to the favor of that 
Providence which leads both nations and 
men." 

The next day he was assigned to the com- 
mand of all the armies, with headquarters in 
the field. He made a hurried trip to Cul- 
peper Court House for a conference with 
General Meade, commanding the Army of 
the Potomac ; but would not linger in Wash- 
ington to be praised and feted. He hastened 
back to Nashville, where, on the 17th, he 
issued an order assuming command of the 



90 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

armies of the United States, announcing 
that until further notice, his headquarters 
would be with the Army of the Potomac. 
General Halleck was relieved from duty as 
general-in-chief ; but was assigned by Grant 
to duty in Washington, as chief-of-staff of 
the army. Sherman was assigned to com- 
mand the military division of the Missis- 
sippi, which was enlarged, and McPherson 
took Sherman's place as commander of the 
Army of the Tennessee ; Thomas remaining 
in command of the Army of the Cumber- 
land. On the 23d Grant was again in Wash- 
ington, accompanied by his family and his 
personal staff. On the next day he took ac- 
tual command, and immediately reorganized 
the Army of the Potomac in three corps, — 
the Second, Fifth, and Sixth, — commanded 
by Major-Generals Hancock, Warren, and 
Sedgwick; Major-General Meade retaining 
the supreme command. The cavalry was 
consolidated into a corps under Sheridan. 
Burnside commanded the Ninth Corps, which 
for a brief time acted independently. 

This crisis of Grant's life should not be 



LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 91 

passed over without allusion to the remark- 
able letters that passed between Grant and 
Sherman before he left Nashville to receive 
his new commission. Grant wrote to Sher- 
man as follows : — 

" Whilst I have been eminently success- 
ful in this war, in at least gaining the confi- 
dence of the public, no one feels more than 
I do how much of this success is due to the 
energy, skill, and the harmonious putting 
forth of that energy and skill, of those whom 
it has been my good fortune to have occupy- 
ing subordinate positions under me. There 
are many officers to whom these remarks are 
applicable to a greater or less degree, pro- 
portionate to their ability as soldiers ; but 
what I want is to express my thanks to you 
and McPherson as the men to whom, above 
all others, I feel indebted for whatever I 
have had of success. How far your advice 
and assistance have been of help to me, you 
know ; how far your execution of whatever 
has been given you to do entitles you to the 
reward I am receiving you cannot know as 
well as I. I feel all the gratitude this let- 



92 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

ter would express, giving it the most flatter- 
ing construction." 

Grant's modesty, generosity, and magna- 
nimity shine in this acknowledgment. If 
there were no other record illustrating these 
qualities, this alone would be an irrefragable 
testimony to his possession of them. There 
can be no appeal from its transparent, cor- 
dial sincerity. 

Sherman's reply is too long to be quoted 
fully, but the parts of it that reveal his esti- 
mate of Grant's qualities and his confidence 
in him are important with reference to the 
purpose of this sketch : — 

" You do yourself injustice and us too 
much honor in assigning to us too large a 
share of the merits which have led to your 
high advancement. . . . You are now Wash- 
ington's legitimate successor, and occupy a 
position of almost dangerous elevation ; but 
if you can continue, as heretofore, to be your- 
self, simple, honest, and unpretending, you 
will enjoy through life the respect and love 
of friends, and the homage of millions of hu- 
man beings that will award you a large 



LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 93 

share in securing to them and their descend- 
ants a government of law and stability. . . . 
I believe you are as brave, patriotic, and just 
as the great prototype, Washington, as un- 
selfish, kind-hearted, and honest as a man 
should be ; but the chief characteristic is 
the simple faith in success you have always 
manifested, which I can liken to nothing 
else than the faith the Christian has in his 
Saviour. This faith gave you victory at 
Shiloh and Vicksburg. Also, when you 
have completed your preparations, you go 
into battle without hesitation, as at Chat- 
tanooga, — no doubts, no answers, — and I 
tell you it was this that made us act with 
confidence. I knew, wherever I was, that 
you thought of me ; and if I got in a tight 
place you would help me out if alive." 

He besought Grant not to stay in Wash- 
ington, but to come back to the Mississippi 
Valley, " the seat of coming empire, and 
from the West where [when?] our task is 
done, we will make short work of Charles- 
ton and Richmond and the impoverished 
coast of the Atlantic.' , But Grant was 



94 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

wiser. He felt that the duty to which his 
new commission called him was to try con- 
clusions with General Lee, the most illustri- 
ous and successful of the Confederate com- 
manders, whom he had not yet encountered 
and vanquished. His new rank gave him 
an authority and prestige which would en- 
able him, he trusted, to overcome the dis- 
couragements and discontents of the noble 
Army of the Potomac, and wield its uni- 
fied force with victorious might. He knew, 
moreover, that the government and the peo- 
ple trusted him and would sustain him, as 
they trusted and would sustain no other, in 
a fresh and final attempt to destroy the 
Army of Northern Virginia, upon which the 
hopes of the Confederacy were staked. Not 
so much ambition as duty determined him to 
make his headquarters with the Army of the 
Potomac. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE WILDERNESS AND SPOTTSYLVANIA 

Wherever Grant had control in the 
West, and in all his counsels, his distinct pur- 
pose was to mass the Union forces and not 
scatter them, and to get at the enemy. With 
what ideas and intention he began the new 
task he set forth definitely in his report 
made in July, 1865. 

" From an early period in the rebellion, I 
had been impressed with the idea that the 
active and continuous operations of all the 
troops that could be brought into the field, 
regardless of season and weather, were ne- 
cessary to a speedy termination of the war. 
... I therefore determined, first, to use the 
greatest number of troops practicable against 
the armed force of the enemy, preventing 
him from using the same force at different 
seasons against first one and then another 
of our armies, and the possibility of repose 



96 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

for refitting and producing necessary sup- 
plies for carrying on resistance ; second, to 
hammer continuously against the armed 
force of the enemy and his resources, until 
by mere attrition, if in no other way, there 
should be nothing left to him but an equal 
submission with the loyal sections of our 
common country to the Constitution and 
laws of the land." 

Grant instructed General Butler, who had 
a large army at Fortress Monroe, to make 
Richmond his objective point. He in- 
structed General Meade, commanding the 
Army of the Potomac, that Lee's army 
" would be his objective point, and wherever 
Lee went he would go also." He hoped to 
defeat and capture Lee, or to drive him back 
on Richmond, following close and estab- 
lishing a connection with Butler's army 
there, if Butler had succeeded in advancing 
so far. Sherman was to move against 
Johnston's army, and Sigel, with a strong 
force, was to protect West Virginia and 
Pennsylvania from incursions. This, with 
plans for keeping all the other armies of the 



WILDERNESS, SPOTTSYLVANI A 97 

Confederacy so occupied that Lee could not 
draw from them, constituted the grand 
strategy of the campaign. 

The theatre of operations of the Army of 
the Potomac was a region of country lying 
west of a nearly north-and-south line pass- 
ing through Richmond and Washington. 
It was about 120 miles long, from the Poto- 
mac on the north to the James on the south, 
and from 30 to 60 miles wide, intersected 
by several rivers flowing into Chesapeake 
Bay. The headquarters of the Union army 
were at Culpeper Court House, about 70 
miles southwest of Washington, with which 
it was connected by railroad. This was the 
starting point. Lee's army was about fif- 
teen miles away, with the Rapidan, a river 
difficult of passage, in front of it, the foot- 
hills of the Blue Ridge on its left, and on 
its right a densely wooded tract of scrub 
pines and various low growths, almost path- 
less, known as " the Wilderness." 

Two courses were open to Grant, — to 
march by the right, cross the upper fords, 
and attack Lee on his left flank, or march by 



98 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

the left, crossing the lower fords, and mak- 
ing into the Wilderness. Grant chose the 
latter way, as, on the whole, most favorable 
to keeping open communications. For Gen- 
eral Grant, as commander of all the armies, 
was bound to avoid being shut up or leaving 
Washington imperiled. And it may pro- 
perly be said here that his plan contemplated 
leaving General Meade free in his tactics, 
giving him only general directions regarding 
what he desired to have accomplished, the 
actual fighting to be done under Meade's 
orders. 

The official reports to the Adjutant-Gen- 
eral's office in Washington show that on the 
20th of April the Army of the Potomac 
numbered 81,864 men present and fit for 
duty. Burnside's corps, which joined in the 
Wilderness, added to this force 19,250 men, 
making a total of 101,114 men. After the 
Wilderness, a division numbering 7000 or 
8000 men under General Tyler joined it. 
When the Chickahominy was reached, a junc- 
tion with Butler's army, 25,000 strong, was 
made. Lee had on the 20th of April pres- 



WILDERNESS, SPOTTSYLVANIA 99 

ent for duty, armed and equipped, 53,891. 
A few days later he was reinforced by Long- 
street's corps, which on the date given num- 
bered 18,387, making a total of 72,278. 
Grant's army outnumbered Lee's, but he 
was to make an offensive campaign in the 
enemy's country, operating on exterior lines, 
and keeping long lines of communication 
open. Defending Richmond and Petersburg 
there were other Confederate forces, under 
Beauregard, Hill, and Hoke, estimated to 
amount to nearly 30,000 men, and Brecken- 
ridge commanded still another army in the 
Shenandoah Valley. In Grant's command, 
but not of the Army of the Potomac, were 
the garrison of Washington and the force in 
West Virginia. 

On the 3d of May the order to move was 
given, and at midnight the start was made. 
The advance guard crossed the river before 
four in the morning of the 4th, and on the 
morning of the 5th Grant's army, nearly a 
hundred thousand strong, was disposed in 
the Wilderness. Lee had discovered the 
movement promptly, and had moved his 
LoJC. 



100 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

whole army to the right, determined to fall 
upon Grant in that unfavorable place. As 
soon as the Union army began a movement 
in the morning, it encountered the enemy, 
who attacked with tremendous and confi- 
dent vigor. The fighting continued all day, 
with indecisive results. Early the next 
morning the battle was renewed, and contin- 
ued with varying fortunes, at one time one 
army, and at another time the opposing 
army, having the advantage. There was, in 
fact, a series of desperate battles between 
different portions of the two armies which 
did not end until the night was far advanced. 
The advantage, on the whole, was with the 
Union army. It had not been forced back 
over the Rapidan. It stood fast. But it 
had inflicted no such defeat on the enemy as 
Grant had hoped to do in the first encounter. 
The losses of both sides had been very large, 
those of the Union Army being 3288 killed, 
19,278 wounded, 6784 missing. 

The next morning it was discovered that 
the Confederates had retired to their in- 
trenchments, and were not seeking battle. 



WILDERNESS, SPOTTSYLVANIA 101 

Then Grant gave the order that was de- 
cisive, and revealed to the Army of the Po- 
tomac that it had a new spirit over it. The 
order was, " Forward to Spottsylvania ! " 
No more turning back, no more resting on a 
doubtful result. " Forward ! " to the finish. 
But Lee, controlling shorter lines, was at 
Spottsylvania beforehand, and had seized the 
roads and fortified himself. Here again was 
bloody fighting of a most determined charac- 
ter, lasting several days. Here Hancock, 
by a daring assault, captured an angle of 
the enemy's works, with a large number of 
guns and prisoners ; and it was held, despite 
the repeated endeavors of the enemy to re- 
capture it. Here General Sedgwick was 
killed. Here Upton made a famous assault 
on the enemy's line and broke through it, 
want of timely and vigorous support pre- 
venting this exploit from making an end of 
Lee's army then and there. But the Union 
losses at Spottsylvania, while not so large 
as in the Wilderness, were very heavy, and 
made a painful impression upon the people 
of the North. 



102 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

Undoubtedly Grant was disappointed by 
the failure to vanquish his opponent. Un- 
doubtedly Lee was disappointed by his fail- 
ure to repulse the Union army in the Wil- 
derness and at Spottsylvania as he had done 
formerly at Chancellorsville and Fredericks- 
burg, when it had come into the same terri- 
tory. Each had underestimated the other's 
quality. From Spottsylvania, on the 11th 
of May, after six days of continuous fight- 
ing, with an advance of scarcely a dozen 
miles, and an experience of checks and losses 
that would have disheartened any one but the 
hero of Vicksburg, he sent this bulletin to 
the War Department : " We have now ended 
the sixth day of very heavy fighting. The 
result to this time is much in our favor. 
But our losses have been heavy, as well as 
those of the enemy. We have lost to this 
time 11 general officers killed, wounded, and 
missing, and probably 20,000 men. ... I 
am now sending back to Belle Plain all my 
wagons for a fresh supply of provisions and 
ammunition, and propose to fight it out on 
this line if it takes all summer." 



WILDERNESS, SPOTTSYLVANIA 103 

The indomitable spirit of the last sen- 
tence electrified the country. It did take 
all summer, and all winter, too, — eleven 
full months from the date of this dispatch, 
and more, before General Lee, driven into 
Richmond, forced to evacuate the doomed 
city, his escape into the South cut off, his 
soldiers exhausted, ragged, starving, rein- 
forcements out of the question, surrendered 
at Appomattox the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia, the reliance of the Confederacy, to the 
general whom he expected to defeat by his 
furious assault in the Wilderness. 



CHAPTER XIV 
FKOM SPOTTSYLVANIA TO KICHMOND 

The story of this campaign is too long to 
be narrated in particular. On both sides it 
is a record of magnificent valor, endurance, 
and resolution, to which the world affords 
no parallel, when it is remembered that the 
armies were recruited from the free citizen- 
ship of the nation. As the weeks and 
months wore on, General's Grant's visage, it 
is said, settled into an unrelaxing expression 
of grim resolve. He carried the nation on 
his shoulders in those days. If he had 
wearied or yielded, hope might have van- 
ished. He did not yield nor faint. He 
planned and toiled and -fought, keeping his 
own counsel, bearing patiently the disap- 
pointment, the misunderstanding, the doubt, 
the criticism, the woe of millions who had 
no other hope but in his success and were 
often on the verge of despair. He beheld 



SPOTTSYLVANIA TO RICHMOND 105 

his plans defeated by the incompetence or 
errors of subordinates whom he trusted, and 
let the blame be laid upon himself without 
protest or murmuring. He knew better 
than any one else the terrible cost of life 
which his unrelenting purpose demanded ; 
but he knew also that the price of relenting, 
involving the discouragement of failure, the 
cost of another campaign after the enemy 
had got breath and new equipment, the pos- 
sible refusal of the North to try again, was 
far greater and more humiliating. Little 
wonder that he was oppressed and silent 
and moody. Yet he ruled his own spirit 
in accordance with the habit of his life. No 
folly or disappointment provoked him to 
utter an oath. General Horace Porter, of 
his staff, a member of his intimate military 
family, says that the strongest expression of 
vexation that ever escaped his lips was: 
" Confound it ! " He alone had the genius 
to be master of the situation at all times, 
and the " simple faith in success " that 
would not let him be swerved from his aim. 
So he pressed on from the Wilderness to 



106 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

Spottsylvania, to North Anna, to South 
Anna, to the Pamunky, to Cold Harbor, to 
the Chickahominy, fighting and flanking all 
the way, until at the end of the month he 
had pressed Lee back to the immediate vi- 
cinity of Richmond. The bloodiest of all 
these battles was the ill-judged attack, for 
which Grant has been much criticised, on 
the strongly intrenched rebel lines at Cold 
Harbor. If he could have dislodged Lee 
here he could have compelled him to re- 
treat into the immediate fortifications of 
Richmond. But Lee's position was impreg- 
nable : the assault failed. In less than an 
hour Grant lost 13,000 men killed, wounded, 
and missing, and gained nothing substantial. 
General Butler had signally failed to ac- 
complish the work given him to do. Instead 
of taking Petersburg, destroying the rail- 
roads connecting Richmond with the south, 
and laying siege to that city, he had, after 
some ineffectual manoeuvring, got his army 
hemmed in, "bottled up," Grant called it, 
at Bermuda Hundred, where he was almost 
completely out of the offensive movement for 



SPOTTSYLVANIA TO RICHMOND 107 

months. Sigel had been worsted in the 
North, and had been relieved by Hunter, 
who had won measurable success in the 
Shenandoah Valley. 

Grant, checked on the east and north of 
Richmond, crossed the Chickahominy and 
the James with his whole army by a series 
of masterly manoeuvres, regarding the mean- 
ing of which his opponent was brilliantly 
deceived. Then followed the unsuccessful 
attempt to capture Petersburg before it 
could be reinforced, unsuccessful by reason 
of the want of persistence on the part of 
the general intrusted with the duty. This 
failure involved a long siege of that place, 
which the Confederates made impregnable 
to assault. A breach in the defences was 
made by the explosion of a mine constructed 
with vast labor, but there was failure to 
follow up the advantage with sufficient 
promptness. Here the Army of the Potomac 
passed the winter, except the part of the 
army that was detached to protect Washing- 
ton from threatened attack, and with which 
Sheridan made his great fame in the Shen- 



108 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

andoah Valley. Meanwhile Sherman, in the 
West, had taken Atlanta, and leaving Hood's 
army to be taken care of by Thomas, who 
defeated it at Nashville, had marched across 
Georgia, and was making his way through 
the Carolinas northward toward Richmond, 
an army under Johnston disputing his way 
by annoyance, impediment, and occasional 
battle. Another incident of the winter was 
the two attempts on Fort Fisher, near Wil- 
mington, North Carolina, — the first, under 
General Butler, a failure ; the second, under 
General Terry, a brilliant success. All these 
movements were in execution of plans and 
directions given by the lieutenant-general. 

It was the 29th of March when, all prepa- 
rations having been made, Grant began the 
final movement. He threw a large part of 
his army into the region west of Petersburg 
and south of Richmond, and at Five Forks, 
four days later, Sheridan fought a bril- 
liant and decisive battle, which compelled 
Lee to abandon both Petersburg and Rich- 
mond, and to attempt to save his army by 
running away and joining Johnston. All 



SPOTTSYLVANIA TO RICHMOND 109 

his movements were baffled by the eager 
Union generals, flushed with the conscious- 
ness that the end was near. 

On the 7th of April Grant wrote to 
Lee : "I regard it as my duty to shift from 
myself responsibility for any further effusion 
of human blood by asking of you the sur- 
render of that portion of the Confederate 
States army, known as the Army of Northern 
Virginia." Lee replied at once, asking the 
terms that would be offered on condition of 
surrender. His letter reached Grant on the 
8th, who replied : " Peace being my great 
desire, there is but one condition I would 
insist upon, namely : that the men and offi- 
cers surrendered shall be disqualified for 
taking up arms again against the govern- 
ment of the United States until properly 
exchanged." He offered to meet Lee or 
any officers deputed by him for arranging 
definite terms. Lee replied the same even- 
ing somewhat evasively, setting forth that 
he desired to treat for peace, and that the 
surrender of his army would be considered 
as a means to that end. 



110 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

To this Grant responded on the 9th, hav- 
ing set his army in motion to Appomattox 
Court House, that he had no authority to 
treat for peace ; but added some plain 
words to the effect that the shortest road to 
peace would be surrender. Lee immediately 
asked for an interview. Grant received 
this communication while on the road, and 
returned word that he would push on and 
meet him wherever he might designate. 
When Grant arrived at the village of Ap- 
pomattox Court House he was directed to 
a small house where Lee awaited him. 
Within a short time the conditions were 
drafted by Grant and accepted by Lee, who 
was grateful that the officers were permitted 
to keep their side-arms, and officers and 
men to retain the horses which they owned 
and their private baggage. 

The number of men surrendered at Ap- 
pomattox was 27,416. During the ten days' 
previous fighting 22,079 of Lee's army had 
been captured, and about 12,000 killed and 
wounded. It is estimated that as many as 
12,000 deserted on the road to Appomattox. 



SPOTTSYLVANIA TO RICHMOND 111 

From May 1, 1864, to April 9, 1865, the 
Armies of the Potomac and the James took 
66,512 prisoners and captured 245 flags, 
251 guns, and 22,633 stands of small arms. 
Their losses from the Wilderness to Appo- 
mattox were 12,561 killed, 64,452 wounded, 
and 26,988 missing, an aggregate of 104,001. 
It would be idle adulation to say that in 
all points during this long conflict with Lee 
General Grant always did the best thing, 
making no mistakes. The essential point is, 
and it suffices to establish his military fame 
on secure foundations, that he made no fatal 
mistake, that progress toward the great re- 
sult in view was constant, slower than he ex- 
pected, slower than the country expected, but 
finally everywhere victorious, substantially 
on the lines contemplated in the beginning. 
After Lee's experience in the Wilderness 
and at Spottsylvania he seldom assumed 
the offensive against Grant. He became 
prudent, adopted a defensive policy, fought 
behind intrenchments or just in front of for- 
tifications to which he could retire for safety, 
and waited to be attacked. Watchful and 



112 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

alert as lie was, lie was deceived by Grant 
oftener than lie deceived him, and except 
that he managed to postpone the end by 
skill fid tactics, he did not challenge the 
military superiority of his foe. He made 
Grant's victory costly and difficult, but he 
did not prevent it. He retreated with de- 
sperate reluctance, but he was forced back. 
He could not protect his capital ; he could 
not save his army. When Lee measured 
powers with Grant, his cause was lost. 

There are incidents of the campaign that 
mitigate its stern and in some sense savage 
features. When the imperturbable soldier 
learned of the death of his dear friend Mc- 
Pherson, who fell in one of Sherman's bat- 
tles, he retired to his tent and wept bitterly. 
When Lincoln, visiting Grant at City Point, 
before the general departed on what was 
expected to be the last stage of the cam- 
paign, said to him that he had expected he 
would order Sherman's army to reinforce 
the Army of the Potomac for the final strug- 
gle, the reply was that the Army of the 
Potomac had fought the Army of Virginia 
through four long years, and it would not 



SPOTTSYLVANIA TO RICHMOND 113 

be just to require it to share the honors of 
victory with any other army. It was ob- 
served that when he bade good-by to his wife 
at this departure his adieus, always affec- 
tionate, were especially tender and linger- 
ing, as if presentiment of a crisis in his life 
oppressed him. Lincoln accompanied him 
to the train. " The President," said Grant, 
after they had parted, "is one of the few 
who have not attempted to extract from me 
a knowledge of my movements, although 
he is the only one who has a right to know 
them." Long before, Lincoln had written 
to him : " The particulars of your campaign 
I neither know nor seek to know. I wish 
not to intrude any restraints or constraints 
upon you." Grant's reply to this confidence 
was: "Should my success be less than I 
desire or expect, the least I can say is, the 
fault is not yours." These two understood 
each other by a magnanimous sympathy 
that had no need of particular confidences. 
That Lincoln respected Grant as one whom 
it was not becoming for him to presume to 
question is in itself impressive evidence of 
Grant's greatness. 



CHAPTER XV 
IN WASHINGTON AMONG POLITICIANS 

Within a few weeks after the surrender 
of Lee, every army and fragment of an 
army opposed to the Union was dissolved. 
But meantime Lincoln had been assassi- 
nated, and the executive administration of 
the nation had devolved upon Andrew John- 
son. This wrought an immense change in 
the aspect of national affairs. Lincoln was 
a strong, wise, conservative, magnanimous 
soul. Johnson was arrogant, vain, narrow, 
and contentious. Grant soon established 
his headquarters at the War Department, 
and devoted himself with characteristic en- 
ergy to the work of discharging from the 
military service the great armies of volun- 
teers no longer needed. Their work as sol- 
diers was gloriously complete. Within a 
few months they were once more simple cit- 
izens of the Republic, following the ways of 



IN WASHINGTON 115 

industry and peace. The suddenness of the 
transformation by which at the outbreak of 
hostilities hundreds of thousands of citizens 
left their homes and their occupations of 
peace to become willing soldiers of the Union 
and liberty, was paralleled by the alacrity 
of their return, the moment the danger was 
passed, to the stations and the manner of life 
they had abandoned. 

General Grant was the central figure in 
the national rejoicing and pride. The de- 
sire to do him honor was universal. But he 
bore himself through all with dignity and 
modesty, avoiding as much as he could, with- 
out seeming inappreciation and disdain, the 
lavish popular applause that greeted him 
on every possible occasion. In July, 1866, 
Congress created the grade of general, to 
which he was at once promoted, thus attain- 
ing a rank never before granted to a soldier 
of the United States. His great lieutenant, 
Sherman, succeeded him in this office, which 
was then permitted to lapse, though it was 
revived later as a special honor for General 
Sheridan. In further token of gratitude, 



116 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

some of the wealthier citizens purchased and 
presented to Grant a house in Washington. 
Resolutions of gratitude, honorary degrees, 
presents of value and significance, came to 
him in abundance. Through it all, he main- 
tained his reputation as a man of few words, 
devoid of ostentation, and with no ambition 
to court public favor by any act of denia- 
goguism. 

But a great and bitter trial confronted 
him. He had never been a politician. Now 
he was caught in a maelstrom of ungenerous 
and malignant politics. All his influence 
and effort had been addressed to promote 
the calming of the passions of the war, and 
a reunion in fact as well as in form. The 
President, professing an intention of carry- 
ing out the policy of his predecessor, began 
a method of reconstructing civil governments 
in the States that had seceded which pro- 
duced great dissatisfaction. Upon his own 
initiative, without authority of Congress, he 
proceeded to encourage and abet those who 
were lately in arms against the Union to 
make new constitutions for their States, and 



IN WASHINGTON 117 

institute civil governments therein, as if they 
alone were to be considered. The freedmen, 
who had been of so great service to our ar- 
mies, whom by every requirement of honor 
and gratitude we were bound to protect, were 
left to the hardly restricted guardianship of 
their former masters, who, having no faith 
in their manhood or their development, de- 
vised for them a condition with few rights 
or hopes, and little removed from the slavery 
out of which they had been delivered. 

This policy found little favor with those 
in the North who had borne the heat and 
burden of the war. In the elections of 1866 
the people repudiated President Johnson's 
policy by emphatic majorities. When the 
hostile Congress met, the governments John- 
son had instituted were declared to be pro- 
visional only, and it set about the work of 
reconstruction in its own way, imbedding 
the changed conditions, the fruits of the 
war, in proposed amendments of the Consti- 
tution of the United States, which were ulti- 
mately ratified by a sufficient number of 
States to make them part of the organic 
frame of government of the Republic. 



118 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

In these days of storm and stress, General 
Grant took neither side as a partisan. He 
stuck to his professional work until he was 
forced to be a participator in a political war, 
strange to his knowledge and his habits. 
Congress directed the Southern States to be 
divided into five military districts, with a 
military commander of each, and all subor- 
dinate to the general of the army, who was 
charged with keeping the peace, until civil 
governments in the States should be estab- 
lished by the legislative department of na- 
tional authority. 

Congress, before adjourning in 1866, 
passed a tenure-of-office act, — overriding 
in this, as in other legislation, the Presi- 
dent's veto. The motive was to prevent 
the President from using the patronage to 
strengthen his policy. This act required the 
President to make report to the Senate of 
all removals during the recess, with his rea- 
sons therefor. All appointments to vacan- 
cies so created were to be ad interim ap- 
pointments. If the Senate disapproved of 
the removals, the officer suspended at once 



IN WASHINGTON , 119 

became again the incumbent. Severe penal- 
ties were provided for infraction of the law. 
During the recess the President removed 
Stanton, and appointed General Grant to be 
Secretary of War. Grant did not desire the 
office, but under advice accepted it, lest a 
worse thing for the country might happen. 

Johnson hoped to win Grant to his side, 
and in any event to use him in his strife 
with Congress to defeat the purpose of the 
law. While the Senate had Stanton's case 
under consideration in January, 1867, Grant 
was called into a cabinet meeting and ques- 
tioned regarding what he would do. He 
said that he was not familiar with the law, 
but would examine it and notify the Presi- 
dent. The next day he notified him that he 
would obey the law. Therefore, when the 
Senate disapproved of the reasons assigned 
for the removal of Stanton, Grant at once 
vacated the office, to the intense mortifica- 
tion and anger of the President, who made 
a public accusation that Grant had promised 
to stay in office and oppose Stanton's re- 
sumption of it. 



120 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

The charge made a great scandal, but it 
did not seriously impair Grant's good repute. 
Johnson was not believed, and the testimony 
of the members of his cabinet, regarding 
what happened, was so conflicting that it 
failed to convince anybody who did not seek 
to be convinced. 

There is reason to believe that Johnson 
never contemplated retaining Grant in the 
office, except to use his name and fame to 
break down the tenure-of -office act. General 
Grant's plain common sense delivered him 
from the snare spread for him by wily and 
desperate politicians. On February 3, he 
closed an unsatisfactory correspondence with 
President Johnson, with these severe words : 
" I can but regard this whole business, from 
the beginning to the end, as an attempt to 
involve me in the resistance of law, for which 
you hesitated to assume the responsibility in 
orders, and thus to destroy my character be- 
fore the country. I am, in a measure, con- 
firmed in this conclusion by your recent 
order, directing me to disobey orders from 
the Secretary of War, my superior and your 



IN WASHINGTON 121 

subordinate, without having countermanded 
his authority to issue the orders I am to 
disobey." 

When Johnson was impeached by the 
House of Representatives, General Grant 
might, if he had chosen to do so, have con- 
tributed much to embarrass the President ; 
but he held aloof, discharging his duties as 
general-in-chief with constant devotion. He 
was instrumental in instituting many econo- 
mies and improvements of army manage- 
ment. He greatly advanced the work of 
reconstruction, and civil governments were 
firmly established on the congressional plan 
in a majority of the Southern States before 
he became the chosen leader of the Repub- 
lican party. 

Grant had not yet distinctly committed 
himself as between the Democratic and the 
Republican parties, although from the time of 
his break with Johnson, he was more drawn 
to the Republicans. So far as he had any 
politics he might have been classed as a War 
Democrat. Had he definitely proclaimed 
himself a Democrat, no doubt he could have 



122 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

had that party's nomination for the presi- 
dency. He was the first citizen of the na- 
tion in popularity, of which he had marked 
tokens, and of which both parties were anx- 
ious to avail themselves. It is little won- 
der that he came to think that the presi- 
dency was an honor to which he might fitly 
aspire, and an office in which he could fur- 
ther serve his country, by promoting good 
feeling between the sections. In May, 1868, 
he was placed in nomination, first by a con- 
vention of Union soldiers and sailors, and 
afterwards by the Eepublican party, in both 
instances by acclamation. His Democratic 
opponent was Horatio Seymour, of New 
York. In the election he had a popular 
majority of 305,456. He received 214 elec- 
toral votes, and Seymour received 80. Three 
of the Southern States, not being fully re- 
stored to the Union, had no voice in the 
election. 



CHAPTER XVI 

HIS FIRST ADMINISTRATION 

Immediately after General Grant's inau- 
guration as President, an incident occurred 
which revealed his inexperience in states- 
manship. Among the names sent to the 
Senate as members of the cabinet was that 
of Alexander T. Stewart, of New York, the 
leading merchant of the country, for Secre- 
tary of the Treasury. Grant was unaware 
of the existence of his disqualification by a 
statute passed in 1789, on account of being 
engaged in trade and commerce. His igno- 
rance is hardly surprising in view of the 
fact that the Senate confirmed the nomina- 
tion without discovering its illegality. The 
point was soon made, however, and the rea- 
sonableness of the law was apparent to all 
except the President, who sent a message to 
the Senate suggesting that Mr. Stewart be 
exempted from its application to him by a 



124 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

joint resolution of Congress. This breaking 
down of a sound principle of government 
for the pleasure of the President was not 
favored, and George S. Boutwell of Massa- 
chusetts was substituted, Mr. Stewart hav- 
ing declined, in order to relieve the Presi- 
dent of embarrassment. 

For the rest, the cabinet was a peculiar 
one. It appeared to be made up without 
consultation or political sagacity, in accord- 
ance with the personal reasons by which a 
general selects his staff. Elihu B. Wash- 
burn, of Illinois, his firm congressional 
friend during the war, was Secretary of 
State ; General Jacob D. Cox, of Ohio, 
Secretary of the Interior; Adolph E. Boise, 
of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Navy; 
General John M. Schofield, of Illinois, 
Secretary of War; John A. J. Cresswell, 
of Maryland, Postmaster-General; and E. 
Rockwood Hoar, of Massachusetts, Attor- 
ney-General. It did not long endure in this 
form. Mr. Washburn was soon appointed 
Minister to France, and was succeeded by 
Hamilton Fish, of New York, in the State 



HIS FIRST ADMINISTRATION 125 

Department. General Schofield was suc- 
ceeded in the War Department by General 
John A. Rawlins, who died in September, 
and was succeeded by General William W. 
Belknap, of Iowa. Mr. Boise gave way in 
June to George M. Robeson, of New Jersey. 
In July, 1870, Mr. Hoar was succeeded by 
A. T. Akerman, of Georgia, and he, in 
December, 1871, by George H. Williams, 
of Oregon. General Cox resigned in Novem- 
ber, 1870, and was succeeded by Columbus 
Delano. Some of these changes, like that 
of Washburn to Fish, were good ones, and 
many of them were exceedingly bad ones, 
— men of high character and ability, like 
Judge Hoar and General Cox, conscientious 
and faithful even to the point of remon- 
strance with their headstrong chief, being 
succeeded by compliant men of a distinctly 
lower strain. Fish and Boutwell achieved 
high reputation by their conduct of their 
offices. The death of Rawlins deprived the 
President of a wise and staunch personal 
friend at a time when he was never more 
in need of his controlling influence. 



126 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

Early in 1871 the work of reconstruction 
was completed, so far as the establishment 
of State governments and representation in 
Congress was concerned. But later in the 
year, the outrages upon the colored popula- 
tion in certain States were so general and 
cruel that Congress passed what became 
known as the " Ku-Klux Act," which was 
followed by a presidential proclamation ex- 
horting to obedience of the law. On Octo- 
ber 17, the outrages continuing, suspension 
of the writ of habeas corpus was proclaimed 
in certain counties of South Carolina, and 
many offenders were convicted in the United 
States courts. This severe proceeding had 
a deterring influence throughout the South, 
which understood quite well that General 
Grant was not a person to be defied with 
impunity. 

In 1870 he sent to the Senate a treaty 
that the administration had negotiated with 
President Baez for the annexation of Santo 
Domingo as a territory of the United States, 
and also one for leasing to the United States 
the peninsula and bay of Samana. These 



HIS FIRST ADMINISTRATION 127 

treaties, it was said, had already been rati- 
fied by a popular vote early in 1870. The 
scheme precipitated a conflict that divided 
the Republican party into administration 
and anti-administration factions, the latter 
being led by Charles Sumner and Carl 
Schurz. Sumner had long been chairman of 
the Senate committee on foreign relations, 
but he was degraded through the influence 
of the President's friends in the Senate. 
Bitter personal animosities were aroused in 
this contest which never were healed. It 
was alleged that the sentiment of the people 
of Santo Domingo had not been fairly taken, 
and that they were in fact opposed to annex- 
ation. A commission composed of B. F. 
Wade, of Ohio, Andrew D. White, of New 
York, and Samuel G. Howe, of Massachu- 
setts, was sent on a naval vessel to investi- 
gate the actual conditions. This committee 
reported in favor of annexation; but the 
hostile sentiment in Congress and among 
the people was so strong that the treaties 
were never ratified. By many it was con- 
sidered a wrong to the colored race to so 



128 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

extinguish the experiment of negro self-gov- 
ernment. Others were opposed to annexing 
such a population, thinking this country 
already had race troubles enough. Others 
regarded the whole business as a speculation 
of jobbers, and the stain of jobbery then 
pervading government circles was so notori- 
ous that the presumption was not without 
warrant. The annexation scheme brought 
to a head and gave occasion for an outbreak 
of indignant hostile criticism of the Presi- 
dent and the administration. 

In this term Grant appointed the first 
board of civil service commissioners, with 
George William Curtis at its head. The 
commissioners were to inquire into the condi- 
tion of the civil service and devise a scheme 
to increase its efficiency. This they did ; 
but later the President himself balked at 
the enforcement of their rules, and, in 1873, 
Mr. Curtis resigned. 

The most conspicuous achievement of 
General Grant's first term was the settle- 
ment of the controversy with Great Britain 
growing out of the destruction of American 



HIS FIRST ADMINISTRATION 129 

commerce by Confederate States cruisers 
during the war. A joint high commission 
of five British and five American members 
met in Washington, February 17, 1871, and 
on May 8 a treaty was completed and signed, 
providing peaceable means for a settlement 
of the several questions arising out of the 
coast fisheries, the northwestern boundary 
line, and the " Alabama Claims." The last 
and most important subject was referred to 
an international court of arbitration, which 
met at Geneva, Switzerland, and on Septem- 
ber 14, 1872, awarded to the United States 
a gross sum of 815,500,000, which was paid 
by Great Britain. This was the most im- 
portant international issue that had ever 
been settled by voluntary submission to arbi- 
tration. It was long regarded as the har- 
binger of peace between nations. 

Other important things done were the 
establishment of the first weather bureau ; 
the honorable settlement of the outrage of 
Spain in the case of the Virginius, an al- 
leged filibustering vessel which Spain seized, 
executing a large part of its crew in Cuba ; 



130 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

and the settlement of the northwest boun- 
dary question. It should be said also that 
the President made a firm stand in behalf of 
national financial integrity. 

But during the four years there was a 
steady deterioration in the tone of official 
life, and a steady growth of corruption and 
abuses in the administration of government. 
The President exhibited a strange lack of 
moral perception and stamina in the sphere 
of politics. Unprincipled flatterers, adven- 
turers, and speculators gained a surprising 
influence with him. His native obstinacy 
showed itself especially in insistence upon 
his personal, ill-instructed will. He became 
intractable to counsels of wisdom, and seemed 
to be a radically different man from the sin- 
cere, modest soldier of the civil war. He 
affected the society of the rich, whom he 
never before had opportunity of knowing. 
He accepted with an indiscreet eagerness 
presents and particular favors from persons 
of whose motives he should have been sus- 
picious. Jay Gould and James Fisk used 
him in preparing the conditions for the 



HIS FIRST ADMINISTRATION 131 

corner of the gold market that culminated 
in " Black Friday." He provided fat offices 
for his relatives with a liberal hand, and 
prostituted the civil service to accomplish 
his aims and reward his supporters. 

In consequence of these things there was 
great disaffection in the Republican party, 
which culminated in open revolt. Yet he 
was supported by the majority. The Demo- 
cratic party, meantime, making a virtue of 
necessity, proclaimed a purpose to accept 
the results of the war, including the consti- 
tutional amendments, as accomplished facts 
not to be disturbed or further opposed. This 
made an opportunity for a union of all ele- 
ments opposed to the reelection of Grant, 
leading Democrats having given assurance 
of support to a candidate to be nominated 
by what had come to be called the " Liberal 
Reform" party. That party held its con- 
vention in Cincinnati early in May, and 
named Horace Greeley as its candidate, a 
nomination which wrecked whatever chance 
the party had seemed to have. Grant was 
renominated by acclamation in the Republi- 



132 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

can convention. The Democratic conven- 
tion nominated Greeley on the Cincinnati 
convention platform, but without enthusiasm. 
General Grant was elected by a popular 
majority of more than three quarters of a 
million, and a vote in the electoral college 
of 286 to 63 for all others, the opposing 
vote being scattered on account of the death 
of Mr. Greeley in November, soon after his 
mortifying defeat. 



CHAPTER XVII 

HIS SECOND ADMINISTRATION 

The storm of criticism and calumny 
through which President Grant passed dur- 
ing the election canvass of 1872 had no ef- 
fect to change his general course or open his 
eyes to the true sentiment of the nation. In- 
stead of realizing that he was reelected, not 
because his administration was approved, but 
because circumstances prevented an effective 
combination of the various elements of sin- 
cere opposition, he and his friends accepted 
the result as popular approbation of their 
past conduct and warrant for its continu- 
ance. Things went from bad to worse with 
a pell-mell rapidity that made good men 
shudder. 

In the four years there were but two exhi- 
bitions of conspicuously courageous and hon- 
orable statesmanship. One was the passage 
of the Resumption Act of January 14, 1875, 



134 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

which promised the resumption of specie 
payments on January 1, 1879, and gave the 
Secretary of the Treasury adequate power to 
make the performance of the promise possi- 
ble. This was one result of the collapse in 
1873 of the enormous speculation promoted 
by a fluctuating currency and fictitious val- 
ues. The demand for a currency of stable 
value enabled the conservative statesmen 
in Congress to take this action. Grant's 
approval of this act and his veto in the 
previous year of the " inflation bill " must 
always be regarded as highly commendable 
public services. 

The only immediate change in the cabi- 
net was the appointment of William A. 
Richardson to succeed George S. Bout well 
as Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Rich- 
ardson had some qualifications of experience 
for the place, but wanted the essential traits 
of firmness and high motive. In the next 
year after taking office he was forced to 
resign, on account of a report of the commit- 
tee of ways and means condemning him for 
his part in making a contract, while acting 



HIS SECOND ADMINISTRATION 135 

Secretary of the Treasury, with one Sanborn, 
for collecting for the Treasury, on shares, 
taxes which it was the business of regular 
officers of the government to collect. Im- 
mense power was given by the contract, and 
the resources of the Treasury Department 
were put at the service of a crew of irre- 
sponsible inquisitors before whom the busi- 
ness community trembled. They extorted 
immense sums in dishonorable ways which 
aroused popular resentment. The Presi- 
dent saw no wrong, and accepted Secretary 
Richardson's resignation unwillingly, at once 
nominating him to be Chief Justice of the 
Court of Claims, a reward for malfeasance 
which amazed the country, although the ad- 
ministration supporters in the Senate con- 
firmed it. 

General Benjamin H. Bristow, of Ken- 
tucky, became Secretary of the Treasury, a 
man of superior ability, aggressive honesty, 
and moral firmness. He quickly uncovered 
a mass of various wrongdoing, — the safe- 
burglary frauds of the corrupt ring govern- 
ing Washington, the seal-lock frauds, the 



136 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

subsidy frauds, and, most formidable of all, the 
frauds of the powerful whiskey ring having 
headquarters in St. Louis. The administra- 
tion of the Treasury Department, especially 
the Internal Eevenue Bureau, was permeated 
with corruption. The worst feature of it all 
was that officers who desired to be upright 
found themselves powerless against the in- 
trigues and the potent political influence of 
the rascals at the headquarters of executive 
authority. When the evidence of wrongdo- 
ing accumulated by the new Secretary of the 
Treasury was laid before the President he 
was dumfounded by its wickedness and ex- 
tent, but showed himself resolute and vigor- 
ous in supporting his able and resourceful 
Secretary. The trap was sprung in May, 
1875. Indictments were found against 150 
private citizens and 86 government officers, 
among the latter the chief clerk in the 
Treasury Department, and the President's 
private secretary, General O. E. Babcock. 
All the principal defendants were convicted 
except Babcock, and he was dismissed by 
the President. 



HIS SECOND ADMINISTRATION 137 

During all these proceedings, in spite of 
the President's professions, the Treasury De- 
partment was beset by subtle hostile influ- 
ences and impediments. The politicians who 
had the President's ear made him believe 
that it was the ruin of himself and his house- 
hold that the investigators sought. Only 
the enthusiastic popular approval of Secre- 
tary Bristow's brave course prevented yield- 
ing to the political backers of the corrup- 
tion. When in the spring of 1876 Bristow 
initiated a similar campaign against the cor- 
ruptions rife on the Pacific coast, the Sec- 
retary was overruled and the government 
prosecutors were recalled. Whereupon the 
Secretary resigned, and no less than seven 
high Treasury officials, who had been ac- 
tive in the crusade of reform, left the de- 
partment at the same time. Mr. Bristow 
was succeeded by an honorable man, — the 
President had to appoint a man known to be 
pure, — Lot M. Morrill, of Maine ; but he 
was infirm, and all aggressive reform work 
ceased. 

In the War Department, Secretary Bel- 



138 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

knap, sustained by the President, stripped 
General Sherman of the rights and duties 
properly pertaining to his rank, of which 
Grant himself, in the same place during John- 
son's administration, had protested against 
being deprived. Sherman was subjected to 
such humiliations by his old commander, 
turned politician, that he abandoned Wash- 
ington and retired to St. Louis. Congress 
was a subservient participator in this shame, 
repealing the law that required all orders to 
the army to go through its general. But 
in February, 1876, it was discovered that 
Belknap had been enriching himself by cor- 
rupt partnership with contractors in his de- 
partment, and he hurriedly resigned, the 
President strangely accepting the resignation 
before Congress could act. He was im- 
peached, notwithstanding. He set up the 
defense that being no longer an official, he 
could not be impeached, and this being over- 
ruled, he was tried, but was not convicted. 
Of his guilt the country had no doubt. 
Then Alphonso Taft, an Ohio judge, was 
made Secretary of War. He was soon trans- 



HIS SECOND ADMINISTRATION 139 

ferred to the Attorney-General's office, and 
was succeeded by Don Cameron, already his 
father's lieutenant in control of the Republi- 
can party of Pennsylvania. 

Columbus Delano, Secretary of the In- 
terior, had so mismanaged affairs, especially 
in the Indian Bureau, which teemed with 
flagrant abuses, that public opinion turned 
against him with great force, and in 1875 
he had to abandon the office, in which he 
was succeeded by Zachariah Chandler, 
against whom no scandalous charge was 
made, although he was a rank partisan of 
the President. 

Marshall Jewell, of Connecticut, became 
Postmaster-General in 1874. He was a suc- 
cessful business man, and on taking the office 
he declared his purpose to conduct it on 
business principles. He attacked effectively 
a system long in vogue known as " straw- 
bids" for mail-carrying contracts. He in- 
troduced the railway post-office system, 
that has been of so much use in facilitating 
promptness of transmitting correspondence. 
But he also insisted on conducting his office 



140 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

with respect of its personnel as a business man 
would, that is, by making appointments and 
promotions for merit rather than for political 
influence. This was intolerable to the spoils- 
men in politics ; and within two years he was 
summarily dismissed in a manner as graceless 
and cruel as any President, no matter how 
unfortunately bred, was ever guilty of. Jew- 
ell was succeeded by James N. Tyner, an 
entirely complaisant official. In 1875 Con- 
gress neglected to make any appropriation 
for the civil service reform commission, and 
its work was suspended. 

During this time affairs in the Southern 
States were, as a rule, growing worse and 
worse. The unreasonable arrogance and op- 
pressive extravagance of the freedmen where 
they were in control, under the leadership 
of reckless carpet-baggers, and still more 
reckless and malicious white natives, had 
produced a revulsion in the minds of all at 
the North who regarded justice, honor, and 
honesty as essentials of good government. 
There were exceptions, like oases in the 
desert of ignorance and vice. The adminis- 



HIS SECOND ADMINISTRATION 141 

tration of Governor Chamberlain in South 
Carolina was an instance of an earnest and 
partially successful endeavor to educe good 
government from desperate conditions. The 
colored race abused its privilege of the bal- 
lot with suicidal persistency. The experi- 
ment of maintaining bad State governments 
by the presence and activity of federal 
troops did not tend to social pacification. 
Reconstruction in its earlier fruits was an 
obvious failure ; and again, if the apparent 
paradox can be understood, lawless violence 
began asserting itself as the only hopeful 
means of preserving property, civil rights, 
and civilization itself. 

During the second term the report was 
persistently circulated that Grant and those 
who followed his star were scheming for 
another term, in order to give him in civil 
office, as in military rank, a distinction higher 
than Washington or any American had ob- 
tained. The proposal shocked the public 
sense of propriety; but its treatment by 
those who alone could repudiate it became 
ominous. The Republican State Conven- 



142 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

tion of 1875 in Pennsylvania boldly de- 
clared unalterable opposition to the third- 
term idea. Grant then spoke. In a letter 
to the convention's chairman he said : " Now, 
for the third term, I do not want it any 
more than I did the first." After calling 
attention to the fact that the Constitution 
did not forbid a third term, and that an oc- 
casion might arise when a third term might 
be wisely given, he said that he was not 
a candidate for a third nomination, and 
" would not accept it, if tendered, unless 
under such circumstances as to make it an 
imperative duty — circumstances not likely 
to arise." 

This was justly regarded as a politician's 
letter, and increased alarm instead of allay- 
ing it. The national House of Representa- 
tives (which the elections of 1874 had made 
a Democratic body), by a vote of 234 to 18, 
passed the following resolution : " That in 
the opinion of this House the precedent, es- 
tablished by Washington and other Presi- 
dents of the United States after their second 
term, has become, by universal consent, a 



HIS SECOND ADMINISTRATION 143 

part of our republican system of govern- 
ment, and that any departure from this 
time-honored custom would be unwise, un- 
patriotic, and fraught with peril to our free 
institutions." As 70 Eepublicans voted for 
this resolution, it was practically the voice 
of both parties, and it dispelled the spectre 
of " Caesarism," as the third-term idea was 
called. There is reason to believe that if it 
had caused less alarm it would have assumed 
a more substantial aspect. 

During the excited and perilous four 
months after the election of 1876, when 
civil war and anarchy were imminent on 
account of the disputed result of the peo- 
ple's suffrage, the conduct of the President 
was admirable. He let it be understood 
that violence would be suppressed, without 
hesitation, at any cost. He preserved the 
status quo, and compelled peaceful patience. 
The condition was one which summoned 
into action his genius of supreme command, 
and it shone with its former splendor of au- 
thority. On the 4th of March, 1877, he 
became a private citizen. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE TOUR OF THE WORLD 

Upon leaving the presidency General 
Grant retained the distinction of first citi- 
zen of the nation. There was no fame of 
living man that could vie with his. His old 
form of modesty and simplicity was resumed. 
As soon as he stepped down from the pedes- 
tal of power the criticism of duty and the 
criticism of malice both ceased. A gener- 
ous people was glad to forget his errors and 
remember only his patriotism and his tran- 
scendent successes in arms. Even those 
who had most deprecated his mistakes as a 
civil magistrate were hardly sorry that he 
had been repeatedly rewarded for his great 
services by the highest honor popular suf- 
frage could bestow. They were ready to 
believe, as, indeed, was true, that in most of 
the things deserving reprobation he was the 
victim of his innocence of selfish politics and 



THE TOUR OF THE WORLD 145 

his unwary friendships, of which baser men 
had taken foul advantage. They were glad 
for his sake, as much as for their own, that 
he was no longer President Grant, but again 
General Grant, a title purely reminiscent and 
complimentary, for he was no longer an offi- 
cer of the army. With all his honors about 
him, he stood on the common level of citi- 
zenship, as when he was a farmer in Mis- 
souri or a tanner's clerk in Galena. 

There came to him then the desire to 
see other lands and peoples and to meet the 
renowned commanders in other wars, the 
actors in other statesmanship. It was de- 
termined that he should have all the oppor- 
tunities and advantages which the national 
prestige could command for its foremost 
unofficial representative. No other Ameri- 
can had gone abroad whose achievements 
bespoke for him so respectful a welcome 
among the great. Every aid was availed 
of to make it apparent that our nation ex- 
pected him to be entertained as its beloved 
hero. He sailed from Philadelphia on May 
17, 1877, and, returning, he landed in San 



146 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

Francisco September 20, 1879, having made 
the circuit of the globe. 

Of such another progress there is no record. 
He visited nearly every country of Europe, 
the Holy Land, Egypt, Syria, India, Burmah, 
China, Siam, and Japan, being everywhere 
received as the guest of their rulers, and wel- 
comed by the chief representatives of their 
statesmanship, their learning, and their social 
life. He was received with high courtesies 
by Queen Victoria of England, President 
McMahon and President Grevy of France, 
the emperors of Germany, Russia, and Aus- 
tria, the kings of Belgium, Italy, Holland, 
Sweden, and Spain, Pope Leo XIII., the 
Sultan of Turkey, the Khedive of Egypt, 
the Duke of Wellington, Prince Bismarck, 
M. Gambetta, Lord Lytton, Viceroy of India, 
King Thebau of Burmah, Prince Kung of 
China, the Emperor of Siam, the Mikado of 
Japan, and many others only less famous. 
With few exceptions he met under the most 
favorable circumstances all persons of note 
in all the lands he visited. Extraordinary 
pains were taken to promote the comfort of 



THE TOUR OF THE WORLD 147 

his party, and to enable its members to see 
whatever was most worth seeing. 

The recipient of all this flattering atten- 
tion bore himself with a simple dignity that 
won the respect of the high and the low alike. 
He was neither awed nor abashed among the 
great, nor was he haughty or presuming 
among the common people. The nation at 
home followed his progress with pride and 
gratification. When he landed in San Fran- 
cisco, he was welcomed as a favorite who 
had achieved new distinction for himself and 
his land, and his leisurely way across the con- 
tinent was marked by a series of ovations all 
the way to New York. To complete his 
itinerary, he soon made a tour of the West 
Indies and of Mexico, visiting the scenes 
where he had won his first laurels, as Lieu- 
tenant Grant, thirty years before. He was 
honored as the warrior whose victories, be- 
sides uniting and exalting his native land, 
had delivered Mexico from the imposition of 
an alien imperialism. 

Unfortunately, this revived popularity of 
General Grant was taken advantage of by a 



148 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

faction of the Eepublican party to urge again 
his reelection to the presidency. New York, 
Pennsylvania, and Illinois were committed 
to his support by the influence of their pow- 
erful Republican leaders ; but not unani- 
mously. The movement is supposed to have 
been undertaken without consultation with 
Grant ; but he did nothing to discourage it, 
and to this extent he consented to it. The 
attempt failed. Prudent people had no mind 
to have their hero's good name again made 
opprobrious by fresh scandals, which they 
could not but dread. 



CHAPTER XIX 

REVERSES OF FORTUNE ILL HEALTH 

HIS LAST VICTORY THE END 

General Grant now made his home in 
the city of New York. He was not wealthy, 
and he desired to be. The only persons he 
seemed to envy, and particularly to court, 
were those who had great possessions. He 
coveted a fortune that should place his family 
beyond any chance of poverty. This weak- 
ness was his undoing. He became the pri- 
vate partner of an unscrupulous schemer and 
robber, and intrusted to him all that he had, 
and more, to be adventured in speculation. 
His name was dishonored in Wall Street 
by association with a scoundrel whom pru- 
dent financiers distrusted and shunned. He 
was warned, but would not heed the warn- 
ings. The charitable view is that he was 
deceived by repayments which he was told 
were profits. On May 6, 1884, a crisis 
came and Grant was ruined. 



150 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

He gave up everything he possessed in 
the struggle to redeem his honor, even the 
presents and trophies which had been lav- 
ishly bestowed upon him. This savior of his 
country and recipient of its grateful gener- 
osity, who was but lately the guest of the 
princes of the earth, became dependent upon 
pitying friends for shelter and bread, until 
enterprising editors of magazines began com- 
peting for contributions from his pen. 

And, as if his misfortunes were not yet 
sufficiently desperate, illness came. A ma- 
lignant, incurable cancer appeared in his 
mouth. He stood face to face with the last 
enemy, the always victorious one, and real- 
ized that the rest of life was but a few 
months of increasing torture. Then the 
magnificent courage of his soul asserted 
itself in fortitude unequaled at Donelson, or 
Vicksburg, or Chattanooga, or the Wilder- 
ness. No eye saw him quail ; no ear heard 
him complain. 

It was suggested that if he would write a 
book, an autobiographical memoir, the profit 
of it, doubtless, would place his family above 



HIS LAST VICTORY 151 

want. Nothing can be imagined more un- 
acceptable to General Grant's native dis- 
position than the narration for the public of 
his own life story. But in his circumstances, 
the question was not one of sentiment, but 
only of duty to those who were dependent 
upon him. The task was undertaken reso- 
lutely, and, in spite of physical weakness and 
suffering, was carried on with as high and 
faithful energy as he had shown in any cam- 
paign of the war. On March 3, 1885, he 
was restored to the army with the rank of 
general on the retired list with full pay. He 
was glad ; but in his feebleness joy was as 
hard to bear as grief. He began failing 
more rapidly. 

In June he was taken to the sweet tonic 
air of a cottage on Mount McGregor, near 
Saratoga. Here, in pleasant weather, he could 
sit in the open air and enjoy the agreeable 
prospect. But whether indoors or out, he 
toiled at the book in every possible moment, 
writing with a pencil on tablets while he had 
strength, then dictating in almost inaudible 
whispers, little by little, to an amanuensis. 



152 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

So, toilsomely, through intense suffering, 
sustained by indomitable will, this legacy to 
his family and the world was completed to 
the end of the war. His last battle was won. 
Four days after the victory, he died, July 
23, 1885. The book had a success beyond 
all sanguine expectations, and accomplished 
the purpose of its author. To his country- 
men it was a revelation of the heart of the 
man, Ulysses Grant, in its nobility, its sim- 
plicity, and its charity, that has endeared 
him beyond any knowledge afforded by the 
outward manifestations of his life. 

His conversations in his last days, as 
reported by visitors to Mount McGregor 
(among these was General Buckner, who 
surrendered Fort Donelson), show a soul se- 
rene and cheerful, devoted to his country, to 
humanity, and to peace. No experiences of 
malevolence and injury had shaken his trust 
in the goodness of the great majority of 
mankind. 

When the great soldier died he owned no 
uniform in which he could be suitably at- 
tired for the grave, no sword to be laid on 



THE END 153 

his coffin. His body lies in the magnificent 
tomb, erected by the voluntary contributions 
of admiring citizens, the commanding attrac- 
tion of a beautiful park overlooking the 
broad Hudson as it sweeps past the nation's 
chief city. Already this resting place has 
become a veritable shrine of patriotism. 
Military and naval pageants make it their 
proper goal, as when, after Santiago, the re- 
turning battleships moved in stately proces- 
sion up the Hudson to the tomb of our 
national military hero, there to thunder 
forth the triumphant salute, like a summons 
to his spirit to bestow an approval. 



May- 7. 1901 



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WILLIAM PENN, by George Hodges 
GENERAL GRANT, by Walter Allen. 
MERIWETHER LEWIS AND WILLIAM 

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